¨Salta la Linda¨

¨El Coronado¨ umm...I think that´s what it´s called. A neat old colonial builing that has a cute museum inside.

¨El Catedral¨a very gawdy, but very striking cathedral off the main plaza.

The very pretty main plaza surrounded by trendy restaurants, coffee shops and beautiful arquitecture.

Soo cute! A mini pony and an alpaca... just hanging out on the streets of Salta. I love minature animals!

I have just returned from my first vacation in Salta, Argentina. All the volunteers in Tarija rave about Salta, but at the same time joke about how you know you´ve been in Bolivia too long if Salta becomes an exotic destination. And I guess I have been in Bolivia too long because yes... I thought it was pretty sweet.

The vacation didn´t go exactly as planed. First off, the two girls I was supposed to go with bailed on me last minute leaving me no time to find anyone else to travel with. I decided to go anyways because one, after six months of not being allowed to travel I really felt like I just needed to get out and finally take advantage of this amazing opportunity to explore. And two, I was planning to meet up with an Argentinean ¨aquantance¨ I had meet at a music festival a month or so earlier that was going to show me all around the city and the country side. We barely had the chance to hang out when he got a call for a last minute show in northern Argentina, five hours away. So that was kind of a bummer. We were planning on checking out his home town which is supposed to be a cute colonial village and the vineyards of La Cafayate. So instead I spent the day wandering around the city, had a nice dinner by myself and called it a night.

I tried to get in contact with him the next morning hoping to squeeze in a quick trip to the country side, but I couldn´t get a hold of him. I think his phone was screwed up or didn´t have any credit or whatever. So I sent an email hoping he´d think to check it. All told, I wasted practically the whole day waiting in vain at the hostel, hoping he would show up. He never showed and I haven´t heard from him since!! I really couldn´t believe it because the night before he was confesing his love for me. These latin men are so passionate!! You really can´t take them too seriously. Me and my gringo friends have come to the conclusion that ¨I am in love with you¨ in latin america is really the equivalent of ¨I am sort of attracted to you¨ in the states. So it´s a mystery what happened to him. But it really wasn´t so tragic after all because it wasn´t much of a love connection anyways.

But things started to turn around... I meet three very attractive southern argentineans and made dinner with them at the hostel. Their accent was so different from what I´m used to in Bolivia. Even though I could barely understand them I loved it! It made me really want to visit southern argentina and learn how to speak like that... and maybe meet some more blue eyed, dark haired, educated, good looking men. Anyways, by that point I was hoping that the other guy didn´t show up because I was having such a good time with my new friends. We ended up going out later that night. At like two o´clock in the morning! Argentineans like to party late. And had a good time.. so at least it ended on a high note. It was really nice to have a capuchino in a trendy coffee shop on the plaza and imagine the people next to you are having some intelectual discussion on politics or what have you. And the variety of restaurants and night life blows away anything in Tarija. And I hear that there´s a mall with a McDonald´s that I missed!! For some reason now that it´s not available... McDonald´s sounds incredible! Next time...