Gil and I landed in Salta early Saturday afternoon. We flew directly from Mendoza, which meant we had an amazing view of the mountains from the plane.
Here's a look at the flight path and where Salta is in Argentina (I did not pay that price for the flight).
Here's a look outside the window:
From the airport we took a taxi to our hostel. My least favorite thing on the planet is chatting with taxi drivers not because I have an irrational hatred for taxi drivers but because I can barely understand them (for me, older men are significantly more difficult to understand when they speak Spanish) and because I have to have the same conversation over and over again. I, however, did converse with quite an array of taxi drivers on Gil and I's adventure: first, to prove that I do speak and understand Spanish, and second, with the hopes that if they chose to murder us little tourists, they would take pity on me and do it quickly because they knew me.
This taxi driver was especially chatty and got a kick out of the fact that Gil could not understand a word either of us were saying. He asked me the basics. He asked me about Gil. He asked me about Spanish and English. He asked about our plans in Salta. We somehow got on the topic of veganism and how he is religious and how God would not have made cows if he didn't want us to eat them (or something along those lines). It was a wild adventure, but he was patient enough to listen to me speak, and he didn't kill us, so 10/10 would recommend this taxi driver man.
Our hostel was suuuuuper duper cute. Yes, you heard that right. We stayed in a hostel.
Why did we stay in a hostel when we were only together for three weeks?
I pushed that we stay in a hostel because hostels can be super fun and because they are cheaper than an Airbnb, which is what we had been staying in in the other cities. Although this was a trip where I was willing to spend some $$, traveling for 2 weeks non-stop adds up, and I wanted to save some money when I could so I could splurge on food and activities.
How did I convince Gil to stay in a hostel?
When we were planning the trip, I casually mentioned staying in a hostel a few times, so that it wasn't a big surprise. I also told Gil that I think everyone should stay in a hostel at least one time in their lives. The one time he said, "okay, sure," I booked it with no looking back.
Aren't hostels dirty and dangerous?
Hostels aren't dirty and dangerous. You have to be mindful of what you prioritize and want in a hostel, and then you have to carefully read a bunch of reviews. If you are careful and mindful, you'll be fine. Every hostel I have been in has a place to lock up your valuables. While it's important to lock up valuables, you have to remember that most people who stay in hostels are fellow travelers. Always be cautious, but the vast majority aren't trying to steal extra stuff to bring with them on their own journey.
There were hammocks and places to sit.
I was on the top left bunk and Gil on the bottom left.
After dropping our stuff off, we walked off with much purpose to go pay for our coming excursions in Salta and Jujuy. For logistical reasons, it was a lot easier to pay in cash, so we piled up our cash and made our way to the excursion people. Our first stop was Nordic travel. I had scheduled two excursions with them - one to El Cafayate on Sunday and one to El Hornocal once we got to Jujuy late in the week. I had spoken to them a little bit through Whatsapp to make sure everything was settled. They had messaged me asking to transfer a deposit to secure our spots in the tour, but then, they never followed up with information about said transfer, so I let it go. Apparently, this had been a very bad decision on my end because once we got there and sat down to pay what we owed, the girl told me that since I hadn't paid the deposit via transfer (that they hadn't sent me), our spots weren't saved, and there was no room on El Cafayate tour for the following day. I was pissed and glad Gil couldn't understand what was going on because he probably would've stressed out a bit. Honestly, I was a bit proud of myself because I argued back telling her it wasn't my fault that they never gave me the information. Oh man I was so angry but gave up and just paid for El Hornocal before aggressively walking out of the building.
I cooled off pretty quickly, though, because I didn't want to freak Gil out too much. I tried to convince us both that it would be fine since there were so many tour companies around. We headed to the next tour company to pay for our adventure to the salt flats while hoping and hoping and hoping that there would be space for us on a trip to El Cafayate the following day. I have no idea how we got so lucky, but there was space, so we reserved that and left feeling soooo much better.
We stopped for a little snack at a cafe after that fun, stressful moment. Gil ordered a burger of sorts, and I ordered the avocado toast with "crema de almendras." Considering the fact that this was a menu item that came on the toast with the avocado, I assumed it would be some type of spreadable cheese or something of the sort. Turns out, I had ordered avocado toast with almond butter. Like actual almond butter. I promise you this was an item on the menu and not my inability to speak Spanish. If your immediate thoughts are, "Oh my! That must've been strange." Yes. Yes, it was. I would, personally, not choose to order it again.
From here we made our way towards the cable cars that take you up to see the city!
It was a beautiful walk!
When we got to the cable cars, there was quiiiiite a line of people waiting to go up the mountain, so we filed into the back. I figured we were going to be there a while, but we couldn't really complain considering it was mid-Saturday on one of the last days of winter break.
According to the time stamps, it took an hour and twenty minutes to get to our cable car. Here's a picture in the cable car before Gil started freaking out because of the height.
On the way up...
The ride up was pretty short - maybe 10 minutes max. Although the line had been super long, things ended up working out really well because we made it up to the top in time to see the sunset. The sun set behind the mountains right in front of where we were, so we had a perfect view. I don't think we could've gone up at a better time.
The view really was magnificent! The city looked so big. I loved to see how the colors of the sky changed based on the direction you were looking! The outline of the mountains was also so cool!
Look at the mountains in the distance!!
Here's everyone just chilling and drinking mate. I'm so envious that that can be their view every day!
We didn't stay out at the viewpoint too too long because we wanted to make sure the cable cars didn't close before we had a chance to get down. As we waited in line, the man behind us started chatting with us. He and his family were visiting the area. His daughter, while from Argentina, had lived in the US for a bit, which is where she met her husband who was from Turkey. We chatted with them for a while, switching between Spanish and English. I'm sure Gil was happy to have found a couple more English speaking people to chat with. While in line, we also did the classic tourist move of taking pictures of each other because the background was so darn pretty!
Look at the sky!!!
On the way down, we got paired with a dad and his son who were from Jujuy. The son and I were equally amazed with how pretty the city looked at night.
For dinner, I had made a reservation (that ended up being completely unnecessary because it was 8pm lol) for a vegan restaurant I found online. By the time we had descended from our cable car adventure, it was time. Although I was in vacation mode, which means I'll walk almost any where, Gil asked if we could taxi. Considering I had put him through the wringer today with a hostel and the cable cars, I agreed.
By the time we hopped in the taxi, it was time to get out. The ride maybe lasted 5 minutes and was less than $200 pesos. It was a little embarrassing, and even Gil admitted that that could've easily been walked. Oops!
At the restaurant, the server heard us speaking English and asked if she could practice with us. It was super cute. I could tell she was a little nervous, but she was great.
The restaurant was called Tantra and had this fun little vibe inside. We may or may not have been the only ones there for a while.
We got some bread with some yummy spreads.
For an appetizer, we ordered cauliflower wings with this unnecessarily intricate spread of celery and carrots. These were incredible and had me missing my Cobra Cabana tofu wings and Trumpet Blossom seitan wings.
For our entrees, Gil and I split the burritos and the ravioli! The food came served in unnecessarily intricate layouts. Like check out the ravioli.
Then, for dessert, we shared this super duper sweet chocolate mousse type thing. It was really good, but ungodly sweet.
After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and went to sleep a bit early to prep for our long adventure to El Cafayte!
The tour company told us to be ready between 7-8 am - nice and specific. We woke up, had breakfast, and sat around waiting in the hostel. While we ate, I started chatting with a guy who told me he was going with the same tour company to the same location, so when we were told that the van for our company arrived, the three of us got up to get on the bus. As we walked up the stairs onto the van, the driver told me, no, and that he was only there for the guy I had been chatting with. Panicking since I had already been cancelled on once, I asked if he was certain. He pointed at his list where I did not see our names, so we got down and went back into the hostel to wait and stress.
At about 7:30/7:40, our bus finally pulled up. I had the feeling that our guide knew we were from the US when he started gesturing hello to us and awkwardly pointed at the seats in the front row of the bus to say, "sit down." While I felt slightly out of place, I was super happy to have been placed in the front row because, although I had taken Dramamine, I had no idea what was in store for us.
While the town, El Cafayate, is small and cute, much of the draw of the adventure are the stops made along the way from Salta. Our first stop...
...was super pretty. We got out took some quick pictures and headed to stop number two. Between stops, our tour guide did a bit of chatting about history and the area generally, which I tried my best to translate to Gil. I'm not a translator, though, and I didn't want to talk while the guide was talking since we were right in front, so I tried to take note of the most important ideas to share whenever the guide took a breath for air.
Our second stop - Garganta del Diablo, was even prettier.
I find this picture with the two people climbing up the wall kind of hilarious. There was a walk way past the wall, but you had to climb up. Let me tell you...people were struggling to get up there.
Our third stop looked kind of similar. It was call El Anfiteatro (teatro = theater), which makes sense because of its fantastic acoustics! Walking into this felt almost like walking into a cave with an open "ceiling."
We were that tour group with that tour guide. Our tour guide prior to arriving to this site made us practice singing on the bus. When we got there, he surprised us by singing the two songs we practiced. He said he was very impressed with our group's participation in the singing. :)
Our third stop was pretty quick. It was a lookout with lots of different colors that was, and I quote, "so much more than anything you might see in Jujuy."
How many colors can you count?
Our tour guide then went down the line of guests and insisted (very nicely) to take pictures of everyone's groups, giving us this stellar shot.
Our fourth stop was a winery that was apparently a boutique winery that only sells its wines "in house" rather than distributing it in stores and what not. We got a little tour of the winery. At this point, Gil and I were basically experts in the process of making wine, so I didn't really bother trying to translate much of anything, since no matter what winery we were at, the sugar still turned into alcohol.
The winery was pretty cute, though. We got to do a very, very short tasting during which Gil and I chatted briefly with the other people in our group who didn't speak much Spanish - a family from Korea. Switching back and forth between English and Spanish, we found out that the dad was traveling and staying in Argentina for 6 months for work, which I thought was pretty cool. They got a kick out of the fact that we are from the U.S.
Since Gil and I both prefer white wines that are kind of dry like a Riesling, neither of us were too impressed with the reds and sweet whites we tried at the winery.
We piled back onto the van yet again (this trip was pretty intense) and made our way to the final destination, El Cafayate. Upon arrival, we stopped at a very touristy store with a bunch of local goodies like spices and sweets and wines and what not. The shouting in the store to try this or take a look at that was a bit overwhelming for both of us I think, so we took solace in the quiet outside, waiting for the rest of the group to finish up to head to lunch.
Rather than trying to find a lunch spot, Gil and I went with the group to have lunch, not until later realizing that this wasn't the best idea because we passed a few places with vegan and vegetarian options later on. At the restaurant we were ushered in and sat down at the first table we saw. We sat down with three of our other group members and were thrown pieces of paper with the menu of the day options. As I read the options, trying to decipher what I maybe, possibly could have, the server came over for our orders. I don't quite know how to best explain the chaos that ensued during this exchange...There was yelling and talking over each other and botched translations of menu items and confusion and more translations and more questions as I tried to explain that I don't eat dairy or eggs and he wants a milanesa but Gil do you want empanadas but wait no sorry I didn't understand that and no Gil I don't know what that word means can you just order something else and I'm sorry he doesn't speak Spanish can I just order after but no wait what and okay yes we need a minute please.
Grateful for one of our table friends repeating to the server that Gil and I needed a minute, I retranslated the menu for Gil, got his order, told the server what I don't eat, figured out what I could have, and got everything settled.
I'm stressed just thinking about the experience again.
The empanadas that Gil and the others ordered came, I kid you not, as we were ordering the rest of our food.
I got a salad (naturally) of tomatoes with some lettuce
and a noodle situation that I just did not question.
Here's Gil's milanesa, which he was excited to try because it was actual meat.
I got a fruit salad for dessert,
and Gil got cayote, which is a dessert common to this part of Argentina. It comes from a fruit and reminded me of super sweet, almost candied spaghetti squash.
With the chaos of lunch over, I asked the driver where we were supposed to meet to get back on the van to which he responded the main plaza. I let the couple at our table know, since they didn't remember either, and then Gil and I headed to the main plaza to hangout.
We walked around a little, passing some markets with locally made goodies, passing a few restaurants with vegan and vegetarian options and ultimately deciding to sit down on a bench in the shade. I think we were both a little tired at this point. Day excursions like these, although they seem chill and easy because you are sitting on a bus all day, are actually really, really exhausting. I left Gil briefly on the bench alone to go look around at some of the things people were selling and ended up buying a straw with a llama for mate. It's super cute.
It was a super cute, nice plaza, so I didn't mind just sitting and hanging out.
Once it was time to get back on the bus, we headed to a corner of the plaza where we saw other tour buses and vans. We didn't see ours nor did we see any of the people in our group, but we figured maybe we were just early, since Gil and I are chronically early arrivers. Looking around a little bit, I started to get a little worried, but I didn't want to show that too much because I knew Gil would start panicking. I knew it was super unlikely the group would leave us, so I tried to remain calm and chill - for those of you doubting me, I have become a calm, chill person, particularly when travelling, so hush and stop questioning me.
At that point, I checked my phone and saw I had a missed call. Thinking it might be the tour guide, I called back (can you believe I did that without freaking out?!). Apparently, the meeting point had been the lunch restaurant. He told us to wait where we were. I watched the full tour van roll down the street absolutely mortified because, thanks to the bus driver, we ended up being the annoying U.S. tourists who couldn't figure out where to meet...oops.
Later I found out that the couple we had lunch with had realized that they didn't see anyone in the plaza and had walked back to the restaurant where they were looking for the four of us. The couple then notified the tour people that the two of us were probably at the plaza since that's what we had been told.
When Gil and I got back onto the bus, I tried to avoid eye contact with the rest of the group, feeling like my Spanish language rapport had been lost even though I clearly understood what the driver told me.
But anyway, on the way back, we stopped at these super cool caves for our sixth stop, including El Cafayate as stop number 5. The caves were surreal and felt like walking into a postcard. I think what struck me the most was the contrast of the orange/red of the rocks and the bright, clear blue of the sky. The slots were also so cool because you could see the dust particles dancing in the sunlight. This was by far my favorite stop of the day.
Stop number 7 was called the three crosses (but in Spanish, of course). While Gil stayed in the bus for this one, I got out and walked up the path for the panoramic view. This was the highest point of the day, so walking up to the viewpoint was a little tiring. It left you a little breathless not only because of the view but also because we were literally just high up.
This is what we walked up. As an aside, there was a woman in our group that was 80-something years old and made going up and down this walk like an absolute pro. I felt a bit out of shape as I made my way up, breathing as if I had just ran a marathon.
Here's the view! How are all of the views so pretty? No idea.
With this stop under our belt, we made our way back to Salta. The drive back during these long day trips is always a great time to nap since it's usually a drive with no stops and interruptions. Maybe I'm weird...I don't know...but I have this thing where I feel like if I nap, I'll miss some of the views. I don't know when I'll be back to these places, so I feel like I have to look at everything long enough to make sure the views are nicely engrained in my mind and memory.
Here are some views from the road...can you believe the sky was just so blue?
We were the last ones to be dropped off by the bus driver - literally even the tour guide got dropped off before us. It was super cute how everyone said goodbye as people piled off one by one. Everyone leaving got sprinkled with, "suerte" and "chao" and "que pasen linda" and "nos vemos" as if we were all connected due to the events of the day. It never failed, and it was really sweet. This was something I don't think I've seen happen in the U.S., or maybe I've just been going on the wrong tours.
For dinner, we walked to another vegan restaurant I had found online. It was a convenient 10 minutes from the hostel, but as we walked there, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere and the fact that there was a random vegan restaurant in the middle of the stores and residential buildings just seemed so arbitrary.
Here it is. It was pretty cute. I would recommend.
I ordered some lemonade and nibbled on the bread as we waited for our food.
I have no idea what this green stuff was. I think maybe something with celery? It was good, though. After we finished the bread, I continued to finish it plain, just straight out of the bowl because our food took sooooooooooo long. Like it would not have surprised me if you told me that they made each of our empanadas very precisely, taking their time to make sure the repulgue (the empanada fold/crust looking thing) was absolutely perfect.
To be fair, they were really good and so was the sauce. They would've been better had they taken less than 30 minutes to be ready, but, nevertheless, they were really good. Gil agreed, but disrespectfully ate his with a fork and knife heehee.
For dinner, Gil got a burger with some really good potatoes and I got a wok with quinoa. Again, really good and would recommend but would've been like 10 times better if the food had taken less than an hour.
Then, dessert:
Full, we made our way back to the hostel ready to go to bed after our very long day. This was literally just day 2 in Salta. We had to wake up early for another all day adventure the following day, so going to bed at 11 did not sound like a terrible idea at all.
As we were getting ready for bed, like I had my contacts out and everything, a new guest was showed into our room, and it was Helen, another Fulbrighter! Turns out three other Fulbrighters were staying in the same hostel as us during our second and third nights there! We chatted a little bit as I squinted to see them, struggling to make eye contact as I stood in my pajamas ready to go to bed but exhilarated as I heard about their time in Jujuy. We said good night as they went to dinner, and Gil and I went to bed with plans on catching up the next day.
The next day, Gil and I knew the drill: got up, ate breakfast, chugged some coffee, and were ready to sit and wait until someone came to pick us up between 7 and 8am. We sat on a couch in the hostel and waited. Then, we waited some more. I started to worry a little as the time approached 7:30 and then 7:40, but it was a little too early in the morning for me to feel any emotion significantly. Finally, at around 7:50, the guy working the front desk at the hostel asked for the tour company's phone number so that he could call and ask where they were. I never in a million years would have built up the courage to initiate a phone call like that in English let alone in Spanish, so I was beyond grateful for him and his chivalry. He promised us that they were on their way. About 10 minutes later, we were still sitting there, pretty awkwardly at this point. My tail would've been between my legs if I had one. Again, he called for us, this time with a hint of annoyance in his voice. This time, he said that they were almost there and would meet us outside.
Gil and I moved outside and eventually saw a man walking to us with a clipboard. We introduced ourselves, told him that I speak Spanish but that Gil does not, and were about to be on our way when Gil *thank the gods* remembered that I hadn't taken Dramamine. I ran back into the hostel into our dark room and pushed things around in my locker with my hand until I grabbed what felt like the Dramamine package. I ran back outside ready to go only to look down and see that the Dramamine package was not Dramamine but, in fact, my package of Listerine in lozenge form. Acutely aware that we were holding everyone up but even more aware that I might get aggressively car sick, I ran back inside, making even more noise as our roommates slept and jostled things around even more to find the Dramamine.
This time we, unfortunately, did not get the front seat of the bus, but we both did get window seats!
I acknowledge my eyes are red here. At first, I thought this was from lack of sleep, but this continued until very recently until I switched contact solutions. We are all good now. No need to worry.
This seating arrangement made things a little difficult because I had to keep turning around to translate things for Gil. My Spanish vocabulary was also pushed to its limit on this trip once the tour guide started talking about geology and rocks. However, poor Gil, did not get many good translations this day because turning around on the curvy road made me a little woozy, so I ended up turning around only rarely, yelling a few words his way like, "Look at the mountains," and "That's a river down there," just so he wasn't totally excluded from parts of the tour.
Our first stop on the way to the salt flats (I think I forgot to mention that that was our destination) was the seven colored hill and Purmamarca.
Can you count the seven colors?
In Purmamarca, we set off to eat lunch first (it took about 2-2.5 hours to get there, so it was, actually, lunch time). We ate lunch with the couple we had eaten lunch with yesterday! It was fun that they ended up being on our tour again. Although Gil couldn't chat much with them, I did a little translation and tried my best to make sure he was kind of part of the conversation. For lunch, I convinced Gil to try something new. This, to both my chagrin and pride (I was proud that he wanted to try something so different), ended up being llama. It was also the other guy's first time trying llama, so they were able to have a boy bonding moment even though neither could really communicate with each other, which was fun. I tried to order some french fries on the side with my salad but was told that it was impossible to order just french fries...merp.
Here is Gil eating his llama. He said it tasted like llama but not as tough.
This was a much heftier salad than yesterday.
After lunch, Gil and walked around Purmamarca. I was determined to buy a llama sweater there, which is what all the cool kids do when they go. I dragged Gil around the plaza that was lined with vendors with tables stacked high with sweaters two or three times, so that I could make sure that I got the color and size that I wanted.
While there, I also bought some cookies for me to snack on, some coca candy, and some coca leaves. The leaves/"juice" you get when you suck on the leaves of the coca plant (the plant cocaine comes from) helps with altitude and helps to prevent altitude sickness. Since we were going super high up, I wanted to make sure we were prepared. For those wondering, yes it's totally safe and totally normal to use coca leaves. They don't make you high. They aren't addictive. A few leaves is not nearly enough to simulate using cocaine.
The leaves were a bit bitter, but the candy was much much sweeter I presume because of the honey.
Determined to not be the late people in the group, Gil and I got to the meeting spot a little early this time and prepared for the harrowing journey to the Salinas Grandes. Quite a few Fulbrighters had already been to the Salinas and shared pictures and what not of their experience, and perhaps it was no big deal to them, but I feel that it is important to share how absolutely miserable the ride to the Salinas was for transparency.
For starters, the altitude was there. We went up pretty high - up to about 4200 meters (~13,800 feet). When you're up that high, you start to feel a bit fatigued. I started to feel a bit tired maybe because of the altitude or maybe because we just ate...but I felt it. I also had a headache which could've been the case for quite a few reasons. And then, there were the curves. Omg the curves. Our driver, who had clearly done this drive quite a lot, drove up the mountain as if it were a normal high way and not a road thousands of feet up with a bajillion curves and a very small barrier between us on the road and the cliff to our deaths. He whipped around the curves like it was the easiest thing in the world. We slide side to side in our seats like we were on a wild mouse roller coaster. It was an unforgiving ride that felt unwise after encouraging everyone to eat a big, hearty lunch. How no one actually got sick on the bus was a literal miracle. If Gil hadn't reminded about the Dramamine, I think I would've died. Just keeled over.
Some pictures from the road that I took to distract myself from the misery of the drive:
The highest point of our trip:
It was actually really sweet during this stop: We all got out just briefly to take pictures, and everyone in the group was making sure everyone was okay/feeling okay after moving around that high up.
For real, though. Just look at this road. Way in the distance you can see the salt, though! That's what kept me going!
I was so very, very relieved to arrive at the salt flats.
Gil and I went out in a car with two other people in our group to a little piece of water in the flats to get some silly, cheesy pictures taken. While the salt flats are incredible to visit, their main draw, I think, is that you can take silly pictures on them. I would've like to know a little bit more about them and had more time to "explore" them rather than just take pictures, but it was still fun.
The salt flats were just that, flat. They seemed to go on forever in all directions. It was otherworldly, really. They are what I imagine a different planet might be like.
Each group got a tour guide who wore this bright green jacket and who worked their absolute hardest to get as many good pictures as possible. They were the ideal Instagram Partner.
When it was our turn for pictures, the guide would shout at us, giving us directions on what to do. These, of course, were in Spanish, so for each of our poses, there are pictures of me trying to translate to Gil what he told us to do. This was great body part vocabulary practice as I stood there with the pressure of making sure Gil lifted up the correct arm or leg.
Here are some of the actual pictures of us. They were super silly but cute.
If you look closely at this picture - just at Gil - it looks like the police just told him to put his hands up as if he was getting arrested.
As we were wrapping up our pictures, our actual tour guide started rushing us because he had told us the wrong time to get back on the bus. He told us 5 instead of 4 or something like that. Unfortunately, that message didn't get to everyone because as he was panickily telling everyone to hurry up, two of our group members were already in a car heading out to take pictures. I suppose they must not have had service because trying to call them did not work, so we all just had to sit there for about an hour, waiting for them to come back. Thankfully, it was the perfect temperature, so I sat there on a little seat made of salt and just took in the views while we waited.
On this trip with Gil (generally, not specifically to las salinas), I got really good at answering the questions about why I am here, how long I've been here, for how long I'll be here, and for how long I've been learning Spanish. I got to practice these answers even more while we waited for our group. The tour guide even asked me where I learned my Spanish because he was curious about my accent. This question I found especially interesting because, if you ask me, my Spanish is a combination of what I have picked up in my classes over the years, of what I picked up during my time in Spain and my time here in Argentina. I don't think he really expected going into a deep dive of linguistics and the nuances of the Spanish based on his reaction to my response. I, however, started thinking about what I must sound like when I speak Spanish. How does my voice change? What does my accent sound like? Do I sound confident? Do I come across as an advanced Spanish speaker? Whenever someone asks me where I'm from after they hear me speak, I'm convinced that they already know I'm from the U.S., but is that really the case, or is my Spanish good enough that they just think I'm not from here (as in Argentina)?
I digress.
Anyway, after our long wait, we piled back onto the bus and started the journey back to Salta, which ended up lasting almost 5 hours. It was a long day.
At some point, after the very long curvy hellscape of a road, a girl got up and spoke to the driver, and he stopped to let her out. I, being the nosy human I am, was a little confused and was totally convinced she had just asked the driver to stop so she could take a picture of the scenery. I thought that well yeah, it was nice, but I didn't think it was worth stopping the entire tour to get out.
She got out to throw up.
We love a girl who knows her body well enough to calmly ask to leave before vomiting. I, on the other hand, probably wouldn't have made it. All hail the girl who peacefully vomited.
The scenery was really nice, though. The sun was setting behind the mountains, which was really pretty. It felt almost dreamlike watching the sky change as I lazily looked out the window, exhausted from the long day, listening to my music. As we swerved down the mountains, I let the rocking relax me, allowing my body to move with the bus rather than trying to force it to stay upright.
Once we, finally, returned to the hostel, we met up with Fulbrighters Helen and Sabrina to get some dinner. We allowed Sabrina to lead us to the location. I was grateful to have a break from the tedious work required to find a restaurant sufficient for everyone's needs and desires.
We waited briefly outside for a table before being ushered inside. The restaurant, not shockingly, did not have many options for me. When it was my turn to order, I asked our server if the humita came with cheese. He answered in the affirmative. I asked if it would be possible to make it without cheese. He responded with something along the lines of no because the cheese is placed in the humita separately. I don't remember his exact wording, but I remember being very confused about his logic and explanation of cheese separation. At that point, I just gave up and accepted whatever he planned on giving me. When he brought the two humitas out, one for me and one for Helen, he gave no signal that one did not have cheese, so I just started picking out the cheese from the one I grabbed until Helen realized that the one she grabbed did not have cheese.
My meal consisted of humita and the fries they, thankfully, served on the side.
Chatting with Helen and Sabrina was fun. We shared our different travel stories and ways we got overcharged. We were also lucky enough to be the first to wish Sabrina a happy birthday once it reached midnight!
Here she is holding our check that we found hilarious because it was just a ripped piece of paper with a number.
Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel and got ready for bed. Gil and I's time in Salta was coming to an end. The following day, we were headed back to Jujuy but past Purmamarca to Tilcara where we would be staying for 3ish days!
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