I´m writing this blog from Ilha Grande, an island off the Brazilian coast between Sao Paolo and Rio (Brazil = awesome). To give you a sense of the setting, yesterday I was told by a local: ´´If you don´t pass a monkey on your way to the beach, it would be a disappointment. Oh, and beware of the snakes.´´
Now, I will regale you with stories of my experience at Iguazu Falls.
Niagara * 1000 = Iguazu
Iguazu Falls is on the border between Argentina and Brazil. Unlike Niagra Falls, which is just one huge waterfall, Iguazu includes 270 distinct large falls. While Niagara is in the middle of the city, Iguazu Falls is in the middle of the jungle. You don't have loads of hotels, casinos, restaurants, ferries, bridges, etc blocking your view. Mostly, it's just the falls and nature.
Apparently, when Eleanor Rooseelt saw Iguazu Falls, she said ´´Poor Niagara.´´ So, did I. At Niagara, they love telling stories about people going over the falls in a barrel. Maybe it´s because I don´t know the Spanish or Portugese word for barrel, but I never heard one.
This is one of the locations where the accompanying photo explains much more about it that what I can write, but there are a few good stories to mention.
Normally, everybody laughs at people who swim with t-shirts on
One of the options for activities at the falls is to take a boat ride next to them. You get to see the falls in their majesty and get really wet. Everybody said this was very cool, so I signed up. I didn't realize exactly how wet you would get, but when I saw people walking around the park who were completely drenched, I knew that I was in for a shower (which is good because it had been five days). I also only have one pair of pants on this trip, so I couldn't really afford to have them soaked. I decided to go on the boat trip without any pants, and because it would just look awkward to be in a t-shirt without any pants, I put that in my bag as well. Interestingly, there was a sign that said you couldn't go into the boat barefoot. So, there I was standing in my underwear, Tigers hat, and running shoes (went straight to the falls from my overnight bus and didn't change into sandals). I wore the fewest clothes of
anybody on the boat.
Whenver someone goes swimming with a shirt on, they look funny. If someone takes a shower in their clothes, it looks weird. But why do people strangely look at someone who goes on a ride into the waterfalls in standard swimming attire?
This is when it pays to know the lunar calendar
In preparation for my trip to Iguazu Falls, I looked into what activities I could do there. One of them piqued my interest: falls by moonlight. You can go to the largest of the falls in the middle of the night and witness its awesomeness by moonlight. But you can only do these tours in the four days around the full moon. Knowing that the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tamuz was in three days, I knew I came to the falls at the right time. (The Hebrew calendar follows the moon instead of the sun. The month is 30 days long and the 15th day of the month is the full moon.)
The falls were very cool by moonlight (Sorry if the photo is unclear. The light wasn´t great for photos and my camera isn´t a miracle worker). I can now add that to the list of things I´ve done by moonlight in my life: volcano watching, biking in the Chilean desert, watched a movie featuring Doc Graham.
No duty
On the bus from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, to Iguazu Falls, I noticed the girl sitting behind me was wearing a Duty Free jacket. Either, she bought the jacket from the store and I would ask where I could get one or she works there. She works there. I´d never talked to a Duty Free shop employee before, except to say ´´not interested.´´ Nothing to interesting about this bullet point except I can make the comment. Do you know what they say about girls who work at the Duty Free shop?
No duty.
My Duty Free experience was much more pleasant (and legal) than that of the B´nai Sakhnin soccer team in Israel. As the team was leaving for a match in Spain, some of the players decided to stop at the Duty Free shop at Ben Gurion to pick up some cologne and perfume. They also decided not to pay for said products.
Iguazu is natural awesomeness. Itaipu is manmade
In addition to being the home of Iguazu Falls, Foz du Iguazu, Brazil is also the site of one of the largest dams in the world. Depending on who you listen to or what metric you follow, it is either the largest or second largest in the world. After completing my tour of the falls, I had seven hours before my bus to Sao Paolo. So I hopped on a bus for a tour of the dam. I've never really toured a hydroelectric facility before. Most of my knowledge of how they work came from Sim City 2000. Well, this was quite an impressive site.
I missed the part of the video that talked about how the dam was constructed, but I learned that it took nearly 30 years. I did catch the part about how the company tried to correct the environmental effects of its project (large national park, big lake that is used by fishing industry, channel that connects both parts of the river and allows fish to continue to spawn, corporate social responsibility awards won by the company, etc.).
At the peak of its construction, Itaipu Dam employed nearly 40,000 people. Before the dam, the town Foz du Iguaçu was just a small town. Because of the boom created by dam construction, 250,000ish people live there now. (All of this is according to the University of Illinois-educated engineer I met on my Itaipu tour.
Was I in Paraguay?
Itaipu Dam is built on a river that divides Brazil from Paraguay (actually, the dam was one of the main reasons I wanted to go Paraguay and I didn't know that I could see the dam from the Brazil side.). The dam is constructed on a sort of binational/neutral territory between the two countries. I didn't have to get my passport stamped Paraguay to go to the dam, but the side of the river that I was on was the Paraguay side of the river.
Because I don´t see myself visiting Paraguay ever again (odds are, because I wrote this sentence, the Peace Corps will add a Paraguay program next year), I´m leaning toward claiming I was there.
Stay tuned for my next entry when I bake a challah, try and prove 20 million people wrong, make a great Wayne´s World reference, and find my true love. Depending on whether I can take an entire day of sitting on the beach, I might send this email out in a few hours.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
El Gaucho Judio
I wanted to do this blog chronologically so it would be the easiest for you to follow, but if you want to skip to an incredible story (probably the most) go to the last notebook slug.
Trapped in Buenos Aires - and loving it
Saturday morning, I went to the boat terminal in Buenos Aires to catch a ship to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The staff at two different youth hostels told me that it would be no problem to get a ticket the day of the ship. I arrived three hours early just to be safe.
Well, after waiting twenty minutes in one line, fifteen in another, and half and hour in a third, I finally spoke to ticket salesman. He told me that there were no tickets available (in the tourist class) until Monday morning. If I was going to go to Uruguay, I wasn´t going to take the eight-hour bus from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. I was going to do this crossing like every other tourist does - by water. I kindly thanked the salesman for giving me reason to spend two more days in Buenos Aires, purchased my ticket, and went in search of a place to stay.
My taste buds love me, but arteries are about to go on strike
Why was I most excited about the opportunity to spend two more days in Buenos Aires? The two more steaks that I would eat for dinner. In my three meaty meals in Buenos Aires, I sampled three cuts of meat. Do you know that feeling of meat melting in your mouth? Yeah. (Back to being vegetarian)
Some people go to London to shop, others to Paris
I go to Buenos Aires. I have my store, as well. It´s the Coto across the street from the mall with the McDonald´s in it. In two trips to Argentina, it is where I found the best deals. Becuase my bag didn´t have too much space in it, I had to restrict my purchases a little. I bought a really soft, zip sweatshirt for equivalent of 10 bucks and a three pairs of socks for two dollars (I don´t want to go into how necessary it was for me to get new socks. Dire straits is how I would define the situation).
Missed My Tiger - or Tigre
Last time I was in Bueos Aires, I passed on the opportunity to visit the suburb of Tigre. It´s about 20 km from Buenos Airest on the Parana River Delta. Many people from Buenos Aires have homes in this area. The main form of transit in this region is boat. I would say that not going to Tigre last night was a mistake. Luckily, I had this chance (Don´t worry about the water being brown. It´s because of sediments in the river, plus I didn´t drink any of it).
U R Gay. Ha, ha, ha
The first 21 years of my life, the most I knew about Uruguay is that Homer Simpson doesn´t know how to pronounce - or read- the country name.I also knew that they won two World Cups in soccer (including the first) and that a player with one arm scored a goal for Uruguay in the 1930 World Cup.
Well, Uruguay is probably the most tranquil country in South America. There is a relatively high standard of living, a stable currency, and great beaches (in the summer). It is a great change of pace from the cosmopolitan lifestyle in Buenos Aires on the other side of the River Plate. Yesterday morning, I took the boat from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, as I had planned on Saturday, and ambled through the towns enchanting old streets before catching a 4:30 bus to Montevideo. I went to dinner in Montevideo before a midnight bus to a town on the Argentine border.
My stay in Uruguay was brief, but there is very little to do there, especially off-season. I can tell people that I was in Uruguay, but the lady at border control messed up when stamping my passport and you can barely read that it says Uruguay.
Probably the best story of my trip
I arrived in Concordia, Argentina at 9:00 a.m. this morning with no clue of what there was to do in this border down except smuggle stuff. The city isn´t really covered in my Lonely Planet book except for the fact that it exists as a border crossing with Uruguay. I went to the municipal tourism office to see if they had any ideas for how someone could occupy 11 hours here. They gave me a map and sent me on my way. I perused the map and something caught my eye - Museo Judío. Then, I checked my dictionary to make sure there wasn´t another meaning for the word Judío that I was unaware of. I checked and the only listed meaning was ¨Jew.¨
Off I went. My expectations were minimal. After all, I was in the middle of the pampas. I knock on the door and the curator, Adolfo (but he prefers Nito), welcomed me in. As has been my strategy with other Jewish institutions in South America, I started talked Hebrew so the people there know you are Jewish and don´t confuse you as a threat. He said that he doesn´t speak English (not even recognizing the Hebrew. maybe my Hebrew is just that bad), but then I told him that I understood Yiddish. That one sealed the deal.
Her might have been the curator of the museum, but he had more questions for me than I had for him. It is also that he was such a good curator and didn´t leave much unanswered.
The museum, which opened last year, tells the story of how the Jewish population in the fields of Argentina became the Jewish community in the fields of Argentina. It started with the pogroms of 1882 in the Pale of Settlement (Poland and Russia). In response to these, the Jews of France petitioned to Baron Mauricio Hirsch to help the embattled communities.
He assisted in getting thousands of Jews out of Poland and Russia and into the developing agricultural communities of Argentina. He set up agricultural collectives (very kibbutzy) where the Jews lived, farmed, went to school, went to shul (synagogue), etc. All the collectives were named after Hirsch or his family members. The settlements were throughout northern Argentina. In the schools, the children learned Spanish and Yiddish (which explains Adolfo´s language situation). Half of the day in Yiddish and half in Spanish. They also welcomed non-Jewish students to the school, as well.
A couple years ago, when the Jewish community was raising money to build the museum, a 100 year old man came to them with a check. He wasn´t Jewish, but he spoke perfect Yiddish. He wanted to thank the community for what it had for him in providing an education.
Adolfo, whose grandfather was sponsored by Hirsch to come to Argentina and who was born on one of the settlements (the settlements don´t exist anymore), said that the people in the community had a saying about how successful the Jewish communities were. ¨They grew wheat and turned it into doctors.¨ He says it's a testament to the value that the communities placed on education that the youth became successful professionals.
He just published a book all about the settlements that I bought (It´s in Spanish, so I should finish it in the next decade)
In the temporary exhibition room, there was a display about Rambam in honor of his 800th birthday.
Next door to the museum is the JCC. I sat in there with the guy at the office for a while, just shmoozing. There are about 200 families in the community in Concordia and just one of them keeps kosher. Services are held Friday night and Saturday morning. Like many cities (including my own), the Jewish community is plagued by the exodus of the youth to the big cities.
Well, that´s it for now. I am off to catch my bus to Iguazu. Hope you found this tale as interesting at I did. If you ever want to borrow Adolfo´s book, let me know.
Trapped in Buenos Aires - and loving it
Saturday morning, I went to the boat terminal in Buenos Aires to catch a ship to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The staff at two different youth hostels told me that it would be no problem to get a ticket the day of the ship. I arrived three hours early just to be safe.
Well, after waiting twenty minutes in one line, fifteen in another, and half and hour in a third, I finally spoke to ticket salesman. He told me that there were no tickets available (in the tourist class) until Monday morning. If I was going to go to Uruguay, I wasn´t going to take the eight-hour bus from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. I was going to do this crossing like every other tourist does - by water. I kindly thanked the salesman for giving me reason to spend two more days in Buenos Aires, purchased my ticket, and went in search of a place to stay.
My taste buds love me, but arteries are about to go on strike
Why was I most excited about the opportunity to spend two more days in Buenos Aires? The two more steaks that I would eat for dinner. In my three meaty meals in Buenos Aires, I sampled three cuts of meat. Do you know that feeling of meat melting in your mouth? Yeah. (Back to being vegetarian)
Some people go to London to shop, others to Paris
I go to Buenos Aires. I have my store, as well. It´s the Coto across the street from the mall with the McDonald´s in it. In two trips to Argentina, it is where I found the best deals. Becuase my bag didn´t have too much space in it, I had to restrict my purchases a little. I bought a really soft, zip sweatshirt for equivalent of 10 bucks and a three pairs of socks for two dollars (I don´t want to go into how necessary it was for me to get new socks. Dire straits is how I would define the situation).
Missed My Tiger - or Tigre
Last time I was in Bueos Aires, I passed on the opportunity to visit the suburb of Tigre. It´s about 20 km from Buenos Airest on the Parana River Delta. Many people from Buenos Aires have homes in this area. The main form of transit in this region is boat. I would say that not going to Tigre last night was a mistake. Luckily, I had this chance (Don´t worry about the water being brown. It´s because of sediments in the river, plus I didn´t drink any of it).
U R Gay. Ha, ha, ha
The first 21 years of my life, the most I knew about Uruguay is that Homer Simpson doesn´t know how to pronounce - or read- the country name.I also knew that they won two World Cups in soccer (including the first) and that a player with one arm scored a goal for Uruguay in the 1930 World Cup.
Well, Uruguay is probably the most tranquil country in South America. There is a relatively high standard of living, a stable currency, and great beaches (in the summer). It is a great change of pace from the cosmopolitan lifestyle in Buenos Aires on the other side of the River Plate. Yesterday morning, I took the boat from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, as I had planned on Saturday, and ambled through the towns enchanting old streets before catching a 4:30 bus to Montevideo. I went to dinner in Montevideo before a midnight bus to a town on the Argentine border.
My stay in Uruguay was brief, but there is very little to do there, especially off-season. I can tell people that I was in Uruguay, but the lady at border control messed up when stamping my passport and you can barely read that it says Uruguay.
Probably the best story of my trip
I arrived in Concordia, Argentina at 9:00 a.m. this morning with no clue of what there was to do in this border down except smuggle stuff. The city isn´t really covered in my Lonely Planet book except for the fact that it exists as a border crossing with Uruguay. I went to the municipal tourism office to see if they had any ideas for how someone could occupy 11 hours here. They gave me a map and sent me on my way. I perused the map and something caught my eye - Museo Judío. Then, I checked my dictionary to make sure there wasn´t another meaning for the word Judío that I was unaware of. I checked and the only listed meaning was ¨Jew.¨
Off I went. My expectations were minimal. After all, I was in the middle of the pampas. I knock on the door and the curator, Adolfo (but he prefers Nito), welcomed me in. As has been my strategy with other Jewish institutions in South America, I started talked Hebrew so the people there know you are Jewish and don´t confuse you as a threat. He said that he doesn´t speak English (not even recognizing the Hebrew. maybe my Hebrew is just that bad), but then I told him that I understood Yiddish. That one sealed the deal.
Her might have been the curator of the museum, but he had more questions for me than I had for him. It is also that he was such a good curator and didn´t leave much unanswered.
The museum, which opened last year, tells the story of how the Jewish population in the fields of Argentina became the Jewish community in the fields of Argentina. It started with the pogroms of 1882 in the Pale of Settlement (Poland and Russia). In response to these, the Jews of France petitioned to Baron Mauricio Hirsch to help the embattled communities.
He assisted in getting thousands of Jews out of Poland and Russia and into the developing agricultural communities of Argentina. He set up agricultural collectives (very kibbutzy) where the Jews lived, farmed, went to school, went to shul (synagogue), etc. All the collectives were named after Hirsch or his family members. The settlements were throughout northern Argentina. In the schools, the children learned Spanish and Yiddish (which explains Adolfo´s language situation). Half of the day in Yiddish and half in Spanish. They also welcomed non-Jewish students to the school, as well.
A couple years ago, when the Jewish community was raising money to build the museum, a 100 year old man came to them with a check. He wasn´t Jewish, but he spoke perfect Yiddish. He wanted to thank the community for what it had for him in providing an education.
Adolfo, whose grandfather was sponsored by Hirsch to come to Argentina and who was born on one of the settlements (the settlements don´t exist anymore), said that the people in the community had a saying about how successful the Jewish communities were. ¨They grew wheat and turned it into doctors.¨ He says it's a testament to the value that the communities placed on education that the youth became successful professionals.
He just published a book all about the settlements that I bought (It´s in Spanish, so I should finish it in the next decade)
In the temporary exhibition room, there was a display about Rambam in honor of his 800th birthday.
Next door to the museum is the JCC. I sat in there with the guy at the office for a while, just shmoozing. There are about 200 families in the community in Concordia and just one of them keeps kosher. Services are held Friday night and Saturday morning. Like many cities (including my own), the Jewish community is plagued by the exodus of the youth to the big cities.
Well, that´s it for now. I am off to catch my bus to Iguazu. Hope you found this tale as interesting at I did. If you ever want to borrow Adolfo´s book, let me know.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Food Coma
Before reading this blog, I suggest that you get some visqueen or something to cover your keyboard from the saliva that might drip out of your mouth.
I am writing this dispatch from an internet cafe in Once, the Jewish neighborhood in Buenos Aires. If you know anything about Argentina´s reputation as one of the best places in the world for meat, you know exactly where I am going with this one.
As someone who keeps kosher, I have had very few problems being a vegetarian in South America. You might have to walk to a few different restaurants to see if they have a vegetarian dish, but it´s not that bad. And, to be honest with you, the meat that I have seen so far hasn´t been that unbelievable appetizing looking. That was until two days ago in Salta, the first city I went to in Argentina.
I went to a restaurant with three other backpackers. They all ordered large portions of meat. I ordered the vegetarian pizza (which, for some odd reason, came with ham). Just looking at the meat on their plates, I couldn´t resist the urge for meat that much longer (The only meat I have eaten in two months was lukewarm piece of chicken at the JCC in Quito). So I booked a bus ticket to Buenos Aires, one of my favorite cities in the world and a place I knew I could find tongue-hanging-out-of-my-mouth good meat.
My original plan was to take a bus to a city north of Argentina, but I reasoned that a great steak is worth going six hours out of my way.
I spent the day visiting some of my favorite Buenos Aires sites from my Spring Break trip to this outstanding city last year (Teatro Colon, a protest of the madres de la plaza, the most beautiful water company building in the world, the only kosher McDonalds outside of Israel). I took someone I met while traveling on the Ian Robinson Reality Tour. Then, when dinnertime hit, I booked it to the Mi Parilla Restaurant on Tucuman in Once. (For those who were on the trip last year, it is the meat restaurant around the corner from Hotel San Luis. The waiters carried huge knives on their belts.).
I sat down at the table and skipped over all parts of the menu but one: the meats. Looking at my choices for meat, I would not be able to take myself seriously if I didn´t order a large piece of meat. There was no time to fool around with burgers or sausages. I ordered a ¨tiro de asado¨ (cut of roasted meat) and waited anxiously.
After I finished ordered, three unkempt Israelis walked into the restaurant speaking Hebrew well above the restaurant´s noise level. We exchanged pleasantries as they passed, and they asked me where I knew my Hebrew from and where I was from. The next thing I know is I´m talking Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball (truly a shame that Moni Fanan left the team last week. He´s a Maccabi institution) and about the Red Bull boycott of Israel.
We fill the time between ordering and dinner with conversation, but when the food arrived, I was all business. No fooling around with ketchup. Just attack, and appreciate, meat. I did a number on this animal.
Because I rarely eat meat at home, I understand what it´s like to be a vegetarian. Aside from shabbat dinner, I would almost consider myself a vegetarian. But what differentiates me from vegetarians is that I still crave, and can eat, meat. So, if I were a vegetarian and I saw my friends dig into that meat in Salta, I wouldn´t have the same desire for beef.
Is it weird that I have more photos up about a meal than for Galapagos and Machu Picchu? No, it´s not.
A brief recap
Well, while the photos load, I´ll give you a bit of an update on what I´ve done lately and what the next step is in my journey. Before Salta, I had spent three days in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. It is the driest place on earth, has the second largest salt flat in the world, and is close to the highest geyser in the world. From there, I took a 12-hour bus ride to Salta, Argentina. Actually, it was a nine-hour bus ride because the bus forgot to pick up seven passengers, including me, at San Pedro de Atacama. So, they paid for a van to take us from San Pedro de Atacama to the the Argentinian border, where the bus had been waiting for an hour as the passengers enjoyed the John Wayne classic ¨Trails of Hate.¨
That night, July 8, we arrived in Salta. The next day was Argentinian Independence Day. So, we (all the backpackers in the hostel, collectively) thought it would be a pretty happening bar night. Even though people were out in the middle of the week, there were no signs that people were out to show their pride for Argentina´s independence. We did go to a bar named after Barney Gumbel from The Simpsons. That was pretty cool.
The next day, I walked through the center of Salta to observe the Independence Day festivities. They´re more into gauchos, Barney the Dinosaur, smiling suns, and blue-and-white ribbons than fireworks. But there was still quite a bit of life. At 1:00, I boarded a 20-hour bus to Buenos Aires.
Jimmy John´s day-old bread is to Ann Arbor as Salon de Té is to San Pedro de Atacama
Like any tourist city, San Pedro de Atacama is obviously going to be more expensive than other places in Chile. And, given it´s desert location with limited natural resources and direct access to fresh food, food will obviously cost more there. But, for a backpacker trying to live on a budget, San Pedro de Atacama is a place where you expect to go over your budget (I did).
But that doesn´t mean you can´t try to stick to your budget.
After completing a thorough check of the city´s restaurants, I struggled to find a vegetarian, or any, meal under 2500 Chilean Pesos ($5) [On a backpacker budget, that translates to gourmet. In Peru, I had gotten used to a three-course meal for $1]. I did find one restaurant that cost just $3 for a vegetarian omelet, toast, and jam.
In the course of my stay in San Pedro de Atacama, I went to this restaurant five times. In fact, when my friends wanted to find me, they looked at the restaurant first before checking to see if I was at my hostel.
Well, I´m being kicked out of this internet cafe.
I am writing this dispatch from an internet cafe in Once, the Jewish neighborhood in Buenos Aires. If you know anything about Argentina´s reputation as one of the best places in the world for meat, you know exactly where I am going with this one.
As someone who keeps kosher, I have had very few problems being a vegetarian in South America. You might have to walk to a few different restaurants to see if they have a vegetarian dish, but it´s not that bad. And, to be honest with you, the meat that I have seen so far hasn´t been that unbelievable appetizing looking. That was until two days ago in Salta, the first city I went to in Argentina.
I went to a restaurant with three other backpackers. They all ordered large portions of meat. I ordered the vegetarian pizza (which, for some odd reason, came with ham). Just looking at the meat on their plates, I couldn´t resist the urge for meat that much longer (The only meat I have eaten in two months was lukewarm piece of chicken at the JCC in Quito). So I booked a bus ticket to Buenos Aires, one of my favorite cities in the world and a place I knew I could find tongue-hanging-out-of-my-mouth good meat.
My original plan was to take a bus to a city north of Argentina, but I reasoned that a great steak is worth going six hours out of my way.
I spent the day visiting some of my favorite Buenos Aires sites from my Spring Break trip to this outstanding city last year (Teatro Colon, a protest of the madres de la plaza, the most beautiful water company building in the world, the only kosher McDonalds outside of Israel). I took someone I met while traveling on the Ian Robinson Reality Tour. Then, when dinnertime hit, I booked it to the Mi Parilla Restaurant on Tucuman in Once. (For those who were on the trip last year, it is the meat restaurant around the corner from Hotel San Luis. The waiters carried huge knives on their belts.).
I sat down at the table and skipped over all parts of the menu but one: the meats. Looking at my choices for meat, I would not be able to take myself seriously if I didn´t order a large piece of meat. There was no time to fool around with burgers or sausages. I ordered a ¨tiro de asado¨ (cut of roasted meat) and waited anxiously.
After I finished ordered, three unkempt Israelis walked into the restaurant speaking Hebrew well above the restaurant´s noise level. We exchanged pleasantries as they passed, and they asked me where I knew my Hebrew from and where I was from. The next thing I know is I´m talking Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball (truly a shame that Moni Fanan left the team last week. He´s a Maccabi institution) and about the Red Bull boycott of Israel.
We fill the time between ordering and dinner with conversation, but when the food arrived, I was all business. No fooling around with ketchup. Just attack, and appreciate, meat. I did a number on this animal.
Because I rarely eat meat at home, I understand what it´s like to be a vegetarian. Aside from shabbat dinner, I would almost consider myself a vegetarian. But what differentiates me from vegetarians is that I still crave, and can eat, meat. So, if I were a vegetarian and I saw my friends dig into that meat in Salta, I wouldn´t have the same desire for beef.
Is it weird that I have more photos up about a meal than for Galapagos and Machu Picchu? No, it´s not.
A brief recap
Well, while the photos load, I´ll give you a bit of an update on what I´ve done lately and what the next step is in my journey. Before Salta, I had spent three days in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. It is the driest place on earth, has the second largest salt flat in the world, and is close to the highest geyser in the world. From there, I took a 12-hour bus ride to Salta, Argentina. Actually, it was a nine-hour bus ride because the bus forgot to pick up seven passengers, including me, at San Pedro de Atacama. So, they paid for a van to take us from San Pedro de Atacama to the the Argentinian border, where the bus had been waiting for an hour as the passengers enjoyed the John Wayne classic ¨Trails of Hate.¨
That night, July 8, we arrived in Salta. The next day was Argentinian Independence Day. So, we (all the backpackers in the hostel, collectively) thought it would be a pretty happening bar night. Even though people were out in the middle of the week, there were no signs that people were out to show their pride for Argentina´s independence. We did go to a bar named after Barney Gumbel from The Simpsons. That was pretty cool.
The next day, I walked through the center of Salta to observe the Independence Day festivities. They´re more into gauchos, Barney the Dinosaur, smiling suns, and blue-and-white ribbons than fireworks. But there was still quite a bit of life. At 1:00, I boarded a 20-hour bus to Buenos Aires.
Jimmy John´s day-old bread is to Ann Arbor as Salon de Té is to San Pedro de Atacama
Like any tourist city, San Pedro de Atacama is obviously going to be more expensive than other places in Chile. And, given it´s desert location with limited natural resources and direct access to fresh food, food will obviously cost more there. But, for a backpacker trying to live on a budget, San Pedro de Atacama is a place where you expect to go over your budget (I did).
But that doesn´t mean you can´t try to stick to your budget.
After completing a thorough check of the city´s restaurants, I struggled to find a vegetarian, or any, meal under 2500 Chilean Pesos ($5) [On a backpacker budget, that translates to gourmet. In Peru, I had gotten used to a three-course meal for $1]. I did find one restaurant that cost just $3 for a vegetarian omelet, toast, and jam.
In the course of my stay in San Pedro de Atacama, I went to this restaurant five times. In fact, when my friends wanted to find me, they looked at the restaurant first before checking to see if I was at my hostel.
Well, I´m being kicked out of this internet cafe.
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