CM3's Argentina Adventure

Tucuman (as seen from a bus & hotel room) (Day 14)

My heart is beating! It's only Wednesday morning, sometime shy of 9am, Mika is next to me watching playhouse disney (in Spanish) while Camila and Mike sleep and I'm only one day behind on my blog! Grant you, the entries for the two previous days still need to be proofread and entered into the blog, but my part, at least, seems to be almost done! One day - and a short, extremely boring day to go! Yeaaaay! I'm almost there.

So what can I say about yesterday? Woke up, finished packing, had breakfast, checked out of the hotel (found out they charged us $20 less a night now that we didn't reserve through the travel agency - so take my advice, never use a travel agency to reserve hotel rooms in Argentina), went to the bus station, waited for the bus, stood in a long line (which Mike found disorganized and frustrating) to get our luggage into the bus, and finally got in. The seats were quite comfortable and most importantly, the ample leg space gave Camila a lot of space to play. She was quite happy at the beginning. Indeed, both girls played very well together at the start.

They hadn't told me the day before, but we actually had to change buses a little bit after our journey started. This proved to not be a big deal as neither of the girls was ready to go to sleep for a while. Even after we changed buses it was a while before Mika fell asleep and then Camila. Camila didn't go down easily. I nursed and nursed and nursed. She fell asleep on my arms for a while. But after I moved a bit and she woke up it took both of Mike quite a bit to put her down again. Finally she fell asleep on his arms - and the four of us slept quite comfortably. Indeed, I, who wasn't holding Camila, slept more comfortably on the bus than at the hotel that night.

After we arrived, it took me all of an hour and a half to figure out our ongoing journey to Cordoba. Once again the tourist office was helpful - once I finally found it. For the life of me I don't understand why there isn't a central place with all the bus schedules. The tourist office has them in a notebook, so it's not like they don't exist, but why couldn't they be easily available to everyone in some central location?

Arranging the trip forward was particularly difficult because Cordoba is 8 hours away from Tucuman. Too long a ride to do it at just any time - we have to be concerned as to when we leave and arrive - but too short to make a comfortable overnight journey. We'd have preferred to leave in the early afternoon and arrive there in time to go to a hotel, but alas, all the coche camas (sleepers) were available only at night or dawn. So we finally decided on a bus at 11 pm. You'll know tomorrow how well that worked out.

We then came to the hotel, Hotel del Sol, which purports to hold 4 stars. Now, you've probably surmised by now that stars in the US and Argentina work differently. Generally, hotels in Argentina boast at least two stars over what a similarly appointed hotel in the US would have. This one, for example, definitely wouldn't get more than two and perhaps even 1 over there. It has AC and a TV, but no furniture beyond a closet, a single night table, a desk and a chair. There is no fridge or anything else really. The mattresses are made out of foam (that's almost universally the case here) and the pillows even thinner, harder and more uncomfortable than at most other hotels. For some reason, Argentine hotels have not discovered the concept of fitted sheets, so the lower sheet inevitably comes off during the night. And all o fthis for the affordable (!) price of $53 a night. Oh well, it was just for one night.

On the plus side, the hotel does have a tiny swimming pool on the roof, so after resting, and then having lunch, and then resting some more we headed up to the swimming pool. I'd lost our sunscreen so we could only stay there briefly, but we all had the best time there! OK, maybe not me or Camila, but Mike and Mika, in particular, had a lot of fun. BTW, this gave Mika an opportunity to wear the beautiful, multi-colored terry-cloth dress that my parents got her. She loved it, and as usual looks adorable with the hood on, and has not wanted to take it off since.

Which leads me to another announcement in the Mika universe: she's fully potty trained. She'd been wearing pull-ups for bedtime at home, and most often wetting them. For this trip I didn't want to lug those pull-ups around, and I wasn't confident of being able to find them here (where I suspect kids are potty trained earlier, diapers are too expensive) so I decided to buy her some of the cloth-pull-up diapers I'd heard about. These are made by gerber and come in two types, one with a vinyl cover and another that's all-cloth but has a very thick padding on the crotch area. The vinyl kind didn't work too well, they were uncomfortable and half the time they didn't hold the pee. She liked the decor on the cloth type, so we let her wear and we soon found out that when she wears those panties, she doesn't pee in them. Something similar happened when she was day potty trained, as long as she wore panties she wouldn't pee, but if she wears a diaper she'll do it. Indeed, the night before last when she was wearing those cloth diapers she woke up in the middle of the night to tell me she had to go potty. And last night she wore regular underwear to bed and didn't pee on them. She was very, very excited this morning.

After the pool, we came back to the room and just hang out here, watching TV and what have you. A little after 7 pm, Mike took Mika to see Chicken Little and I stayed here with Camila. She quickly went to bed so I spent the rest of the evening watching TV. I'd have blogged, but I'd forgotten the password for the computer.

The movie was at a mega-mall far from downtown. The mall was modern, just like the one in Salta, and had a play area for kids somewhat smaller than the one in Salta. It also had a McDonalds (of course). They watched the movie for a while, but it was too loud and Mika didn't want to stay for the whole movie. They came back around 9 pm - Camila was still out and basically slept until 9 am this morning, a record for her (note, she did wake up to nurse several times, of course).

After they came back, I went out to search for food. I walked around downtown for a while, but couldn't find anything. Finally I came across a place selling empanadas to go in front of the plaza. These were the worse empanadas we've ever had. They were filled with large chunks of unchewable fat. ACk! Indeed, we'd also found that the ice cream in Tucuman is less than great.

We turned in for the night, and I had a pretty uncomfortable night. The hotel didn't have a double and single bed, what we prefer, so we put two single beds together where Mika, Camila and I slept. Camila spent most of her time in the crack between the beds, but still whatever position that left me gave me the hugest back ache all night. The AC also gave me a deep throat ache, so I kept waking up in agony. All of this for $53! Oh well, at least they told us we can hang out in the public areas of the hotel until our bus came, which we may have to do from time to time today. Fortunately we can stay in our room until 2 pm (it's almost 10 am now).

I'm off to get dressed and draw more paper dolls for Mika.

Back in Salta (Day 13)

We were done with Salta but decided to stay there an extra day so we could relax and get some shopping done. Plus we like Salta, it's such a cool city with just the right blend of cosmopolitaness (much of it brought by its tourist industry, mind you) and small-towness, it's slow yet energetic, extremely welcoming and has a very good climate. So no, we weren't eager to leave even though it was time.

We had a pretty slow morning. We got some pictures put on a CD, returned the car, ran into the British couple again and talked for a while and called to have our laundry picked up. I wanted to go to a laundymat propper, as those were bound to be cheaper, but we couldn't find any in Salta. The guy at the hotel recommended a service that would pick it up at the hotel, so we decided to go for that even though they said it'd be about $8 a kilo (the guy said there are about 12 clothing items in a kilo). We didn't have a scale but it seemed to us that we had several kilos but it beat the hassle of having to find a place to do it ourselves.

It worked out well as soon after we returned to our room, Camila fell asleep and she had one of the longest naps ever. She must have slept for 3 or 4 hours. The poor dear obviously needed it and, of course, we didn't want to interfere with it.

Meanwhile I think I blogged some, we played with Mika, Mike got more pictures put on a CD, Mika had a little nap, I got us lunch (a milanesa a la napolitanana - topped with tomato sauce, ham and cheese, almost like a milanesa based pizza and some chicken, all for about U$3), we brought the laundry downstairs, and finally, with two kids sleeping, Mike left for the cafe with wi-fi at the other size of the plaza to post our blogs and download mail. After the two girls woke up, some time in the middle of the afternoon, we joined him there and I talked a bit on skype with my parents. I found out that my aunt Gladys doesn't want to go to Mar del Plata with us, which basically made me rethink our schedule. I'm still in the process of formalizing it as we speak.

We finally took off and after dumping Mike's computer in the hotel we took a taxi to the Handicraft market. After taking care of a complaining baby (one of the advantages of traveling in a breastfeeding-friendly country is that as long as I can find a place to seat I can nurse without a problem, we've seen women nurse on the go but that doesn't work for me) we visited the stalls and I bought a few things, mostly for me. Now, I looked and looked and looked for stuff for you guys, but you guys are just too difficult and I couldn't find anything. I love ethnhic-looking handicrafts, but thinking of your homes none of you seem to be displaying that kind of stuff that prominently and some of the Salten~o stuff is definitely quirky, so I really can't imagine you guys would go for it. And hard as I try I don't really see any of you in a poncho. And I can't see you guys playing the quena or drinking from a mate. But hey, if I'm wrong, comment here with what you might like.

I have to say that handicrafts around here are considerably more expensive that what I'm used to paying. I hope that the $ actually goes to the artists, though I'm not sure that's the case in all cases. We saw some wall rugs that were positively gorgeous, and signed by their artist, but even a very small one was U$100 and they went up to U$1000 without getting too big. I'm sure the artist deserves it but it was too rich for our blood.

We were finally tired and done and came back home. After a little rest we went handicraft shopping at the stores around town (couldn't find anything I wanted for a price I wanted), we tried to go to dinner again (and ran into the British couple for a final time). Alas, Camila was not beeing cooperative so we decided on take out again. Back at the hotel Camila fed herself a lot of chicken, the poor little girl was hungry!

The rest of the evening was spent packing, putting the kids to sleep, and just hanging out.

Christmas Day - Marga

Mike started blogging about our drive back to Salta Christmas day, so I'll let him finish and concentrate on what's real important: Mika's reaction to her presents.

First, a little background. Mika is now over 3 1/2 years old and for the first time old enough to understand the concept of Santa Claus and presents. For the last couple of months every time she saw something she wanted, we told her to write to Santa about it. That saved us from buying many, many things plus it reinforced the concept of Santa on her mind. At the same time, she's been going through an obsession with little dolls. Last year it was baby, this year it's girl dolls, probably around her age, so she seems to be going through dolls chronologically. It's pretty cute. She already has several of those dolls, but I guess she wants more, as the two times she saw Santa she asked him for a "little doll" for Christmas. She was fully expecting to get it, and as I detailed in yesterday's blog my plans to give her one had failed. We had seen other Kelly dolls around - some not too outrageously expensive at around U$7, but we hadn't bought them mostly as she was there around. But we were in Cachi, a village, late on Christmas day and our doll-buying opportunities were limited to say the least. So Mike bought her a three pack with dolls somewhere in size between a Kelly and a Barbie, of the cheapest plastic and construction possible. We were a bit apprehensive.

We shouldn't have been. Mika was delighted. She was a little surprised that Santa had brought her three dolls rather than the one she had asked for, but she was screaming from excitement. She really loved them. We, of course, cherished her reaction. I would like to hope that she could keep that enthusiasm for the mere essence of things, but I'm afraid that by next year or the next she will know only too well the difference between a brand doll and a cheapo not-even-imitation. Enjoy it while we can.

Santa brought a cheap rattle for Camila and Mika was even more excited about it. At some point later she even offered to exchange presents with Camila and indeed she's played with it during the next days. The dolls were so cheap that they've lost their heads and other limbs, so their play value is limited, but she has played with them since as well.

Santa brought Mike and I some candy, Mika was mildly surprised he brought us something at all, so maybe we shouldn't have bothered. I liked my mantecol, though :)

Mike has/will detail our drive to Salta, so I'll start after we got there. We found the city relatively deserted and quiet on that Christmas afternoon. That was somewhat surprising as El Carril, which we passed on our way to Salta, seemed buzzing with activity. It might have been the hour, but also the differences between an economy of need vs. an economy of want.

All the car garages downtown were closed, but the guy from our hotel had the key to the one near the hotel so he let us bring our car in there. They also gave us our same room at the hotel, a room that really made a huge difference between a crappy stay in Salta and a good one. I think it's one of two at the hotel that has a separate living room, and having a place to go while I put one of the girls to sleep and after they sleep is just wonderful.

After we settled down we went for lunch, many of the restaurants on the square were closed, so we settled on Cafe Van Gogh, the restaurant at the Hotel Plaza. We like eating at outdoor restaurants at the square, as if the kids are annoying or loud it's easier to divert them. Plus the traffic noise covers some of Camila's loud complaints. Van Gogh was pretty good. I had a very nice Roquefort pizza. Pizza at cafes and other non-pizzerias places in Argentina (most of them serve it) is surprisingly good. I thought they might use pre-made, frozen pizzas but Mike actually saw them twirling the dough around at one cafe (not this one). In any case, I've been quite happy. Pizza in Argentina doesn't taste like pizza in the US, mind you. In general the dough is thinner (though not as thin as many Italian pizzas), though the one at this place was on the thick side, just like I like it. Mike had a milanesa he was also happy with. The kids lasted a little while, but not through lunch, so Mike took them to the plaza to play with the pigeons. I joined them a while later, after I was finally able to pay the bill (have I talked about how slow service can be in Argentina? ). Once again they had a great time. You can buy bags of corn for $.25 to $.50 (8 to 17 American cents) and have a blast making the pigeons surround you. Mika was a bit over it by the time I got there, but we made some kids day buy buying some corn for them.

We then retrieted to the hotel, for naps or rest or whathave you, though we came out sometime later to go to the bus station and get tickets for our next stop, Tucuman. I wanted a "coche cama", one that has seats that are both very comfy and recline quite a bit down and as most of them left at night, I had to spend quite a bit of town going through the different agencies until I found one (though the information desk helped). I finally was able to get 3 seats together for Tuesday at 9 am. A bit early for us but definitely doable.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Salta's downtown started to fill up. Many of the restaurants re-opened, the Cathedral was up and running with an 8 o'clock mass, and people were dressed on their Sunday's best and strolling around. It was so buy that when we got out for dinner we could only get a table at Cafe Van Gogh again, where once again we had a pretty good meal. This time Camila gave us a one-time-only Christmas present by consenting to seat on her stroller during dinner and feed herself. This didn't last to dessert time (no matter, we got some ice cream on the way back to the hotel) but at least both of us could eat unhampered at the same time.

All in all Christmas day was quite nice and relaxing. I hope you had a great Xmas as well!!!!

Cachi back to Salta

As I type this, we're on an Andesmar bus on our way from Salta to Tucuman.

Breakfast at the Hosteria Cachi was a pleasant experience as we were able to dine outside on the patio with a beautiful view of Cachi and the surrounding area. The breakfast was better than usual with some cheese, ham, and fruit. However, one bite of the apple made me set it right back down - it was very soft and not crunchy at all.

After breakfast, Mika amused a lady who was cleaning the floor when she objected to her possibly hurting a beetle that Mika had seen on the floor. I think we've mentioned previously how Mika now is very protective of all bugs. I encouraged Mika to pick up the bug and place it on the lawn, but when she started to, she felt how sticky the legs of the beetle were and it surprised her. I ended up moving the bug to safer territory.

After Margarita had packed everything, I started loading the car while she and the kids played in the courtyard with the basset hound puppy. I finally talked to this couple that we had seen a couple of times in the last few days. It turns out that they were from Australia, though he was originally from Germany. They would be heading back to Salta on the same road as us.

Since we were driving back on the same road we took to Cachi, I had little interest in sightseeing and hoped that the drive would go by quickly. However, the road and the weather conditions were a bit different this time. It had rained the night before, and at one point, Margarita had to check the depth of a submerged area of the road to ensure that we could safely traverse it. As we approached the summit of Piedra del Molino, the lower layers of the clouds got closer and closer until we were enveloped in the moist coolness of the Andean clouds. Of course, this slowed things down a bit until we passed the summit and dove beneath the lowest layers of the clouds.

The rest of the trip back was unremarkable except for a passing car telling us that one of our tires was going flat. That came as no surprise, since we had noticed that the car was handling differently on the road - but we had attributed it to the suspension, since we had been on rough unpaved roads for the past few days. I filled the tire with air at a service station and it appeared that it was a slow leak, which was good, since I really didn't want to have to change a tire before we returned the car the next morning.

Speaking of rental cars, as noted before, ours was a five-door Volkswagen Gol. When we rented the car, I went over the various dings and dents with the agency to ensure we didn't get charged for any damage we didn't cause. I noted that the tires barely had any tread left and should be changed. I also noted that the front right tire was low on air, but was assured that it was proper. Of course, the first time we took a left turn and the tire squealed, I knew I was right. The car ...

Day 11 - Christmas Eve - The road to Cachi

Christmas' Eve morning was clear and beautiful, without a hint of rain anywhere. As usual, it took us a while to start our morning, but after some more socializing with our fellow travelers and a paultry breakfast, we finally headed north towards Salta. We debated for a while whether we should try to get to Cachi through Molinos, or just forgo it altogether. We knew that that road is iffy when it rains, though it had cleared out enough that it could be well. Still, it's a dirt road the whole way through and I think pretty whindy, and I was afraid it was unfair on the kids to subject them to it. Camila was sleeping so peasably and I didn't think she would on that road. So we decided to head north towards Salta instead, through the Cafayate canyon again. The kids slept most of the way, Mika no doubt aided by the dramamine. The formations were once again amazing and with sleeping kids we made pretty good time, so that by 1 pm we were at El Carril, where the other road to Cachi leads from. We stopped at the gas station for some gas, and a bathroom break, and some drinks, and then went back to it for another bathroom break, and then back again to get something to eat. They only had lomito and milanesa sandwiches, but they were both very large, very good and very cheap, once again proving that you can get good food at the most unlikely places.

Given how early it was, we thought we could punish our kids some more and take the El carril road to Cachi. This one is partly paved and it was supposed to be in much better condition than the other one. It was also supposed to be beautiful. And indeed it was, though it did not meet our expectations. Perhaps we have driven through too many beautiful roads and our standards are now too high - our British friends whom we ran into later seemed to have really liked it - but in any case while we enjoyed the drive (our kids were good to sleep or entertain themselves most of the way, though we had to stop for them to stretch their legs, nurse, etc. a few times) it was not, as Lonely Planet called it, one of the most beautiful drives in the world. The road from the lake Titicaca to La Paz in Bolivia was, for example, much, much prettier.

But I did find the change of scenery fascinating. Once again, we started in lush green fields, which eventually gave way to sparsely vegetated fields and finally to the most amazing desert altiplano, dotted with gorgeous cacti everywhere you could see. On the way we passed deep, lush valleys and almost reached the clouds (on the way back they were low enough that we drove through them for quite a while). We reached a little over 3200 meters before going down again about 1000 more.

We got to Cachi around 4:30 PM and headed towards the ACA hotel, where we ran into the British couple again. They were going back to Salta but we decided to stay and enjoy our Chrismas Eve there. The ACA hotel was quite a nice resort, with a restaurant that would serve a special Xmas dinner, a pool (which unfortuanately by then it was too cold for us to use - imagine that), a playground and even an "ecological farm" where they raise farm animals (chickens, pigs, goats, sheep and rabbits) as well as some somewhat more exotic birds such as rheas, peacocks and about a dozen species of pheasants, many quite beautiful. They also had a nice green area between the rooms and the people who ran it had a couple of little girls Mika's age and a basset hound puppy. The rooms were extremely expensive at $168 or US$56 for a triple (three single beds, only two of which we could put together) but the hotel was quite plesant and we wanted a hotel where we could hang out for a while outside the room.

Our other priority for the afternoon was to get a present for Mika and Camila. After all it was Xmas eve and she was expecting Santa to bring her something - we'd talked about that for months and twice she'd asked Santa for "a little doll". I had first thought about bringing a present with me, but she'd quickly discovered the kelly/pegasus set I'd bought her and I'd had to give it to her before we even left the States. Mike had bought her a little Nativity Scene she'd seen and liked at one of the handicraft stalls, but we needed little dolls, so Mike headed to town looking for some. Cachi is a very small town all in all, though mercifully many of its stores were open even so late into Christmas Eve. Mike was able to find a set of three extremely cheap but somewhat little plastic dolls and we both prayed than Mika wouldn't mind they weren't exactly what she asked for. YOu'll have to wait until tomorrow's log for her reaction :)

After unsuccessfully trying to put Camila down for a nap, we all headed to Cachi again. The little town is very cute, with humble whitewashed adobe houses, cobblestone streets and a nice shady central plaza that had been decorated for Xmas. Mika played in the playground some, and we even stopped by the one-room library where I read Mika a couple of books. She was very, very excited by the children's mural on the wall. Little kids can be so happy with so little.

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel where Mike and Mika had a nap, and Camila slept on my breast for a while and then was awake and happy and wanting to play. She can be so much fun when she's in that mood, laughing at almost anything. If she was only like that all the time!

Dinner was set for 9 PM, so I woke my two sleeping beauties by that time. We put on our Xmas fancy and headed to the dining room. The menu was quite nice and pretty cheap at $25 or about US$8.30 per person. It started with a picada of green olives, stuffed mushrooms (very yummy), prosciutto, hearts of palm (these went uneaten), sundried tomatoes (sweet and very nice) and Russian salad (Mika didn't like it). Afterwards there was a choice of tenderloin stuffed with prosciutto and something else or chicken with a mushroom sauce, both served with noisette potatoes (my favorites) and caramelized onions and bell peppers. Both dishes were quite good, though the meats were a bit dry. We've seen several gastronomic schools around, and often wondered who is going to those schools when the menus at most Argentine restaurants are so similar and simple and consist of dishes you can learn to cook all in an afternoon, but I guess there are some times and places where chefs can show off their knowhow. We accompanied this with a bottle of Vasija Secreta Cab ($5) which was OK, easy to drink though with very little complexity. Dessert consisted of a dulce de leche mousse which Mike loved (I'll have to figure out how to make it) and ice cream. Ice cream at Argentine restaurants is usually of low quality and this was no exception, but Mika enjoyed it all the same. Finally we were given some pan dulce and turron, though by then Mike had taken the girls back to the room (they'd been difficult at dinner) and we were all too stuffed to actually eat them. After putting them down to sleep I blogged a little bit and went down to bed myself.

Day 10 - Quebrada de Cafayate and Quilmes

It's Christmas day (day 12) as I write this, so Merry Xmas everybody! Hope Santa has visited everyone! Everyone but me is still sleeping, so we'll have to see what Mika's reaction to her paltry gifts is. Stay tuned for the description of day 12, coming up soon!

Friday morning I woke up before everyone as usual, and I started packing. We were checking out that day and I wanted to do that as early as possible. It still took us quite a while. As I've mentioned before, getting out of the hotel always takes us forever. Once again we decided to forgo breakfast at the hotel, as it wasn't worth our time, so on the way out of town I stopped for some cookies and drinks. I looked through the whole store, but couldn't find anything healthier than cookies :( We also stopped at a pharmacy for more dramamine (that's how Mika and I have been surviving the drives, alas at the price of feeling drowsy or just plain falling asleep) and some anti-diarrhea medicine for Mike who once again was sick. The medicine, I should say, worked wonderfully. It's nice to be able to ask the pharmacist for help with common ailments, and to be able to buy pills individually.

The drive down to Cafayate took several hours but was quite pleasant. Mika slept and entertained herself by drawing, asking us to draw things for her or playing with her finger puppets. Camila slept, played with her sister and didn't complain much, and we looked out to the green valley filled with tobacco plantations, and grazing fields for horses, cows,
sheep and, of course goats. Salta is known as "Salta la linda," or Salta the beautiful, but it could as well be called "the goat state" given the abundance of goats.

Once again I was amazed at just how green Salta is; it's quite clear given the abundant vegetation that we are in the tropics. Still, in my imagination, Salta had always been a "brown" province - and indeed, parts of it (the "puna" or high desert) are just like that. One of the most amazing things about driving here is that you can go from a tropical jungle to a desert area replete with cactuses in a matter of a few miles, if not minutes (those windy roads are a slow drive).

We drove through several villages not worthy of note and finally stopped at La Posta de las Cabras, a modern and private cafeteria/rest stop right outside the Cafayate canyon. This was a fairly new building, again with very nice bathrooms, next to a field grazed by gorgeous, small white goats. Really, a perfect place for a stop. We got a snack, something to drink, the girls watched the goats and we all just extended our legs after such a long drive. Mike also pointed out the exoskeleton shells of cicadas to Mika, who brought one in to show me. On the way back to the road we ran into a couple from England and South Africa who've been traveling around the world for eight months before they plan to settle down to have kids. Mike and I talked about doing that before, but before we got our act together, we had Mika. I fantasize sometimes about taking a year off and traveling with them, but I think it would be too difficult for their social development. As it is, Mika really misses playing with other kids. She tries to play with kids she meets, but it's hard because of the language barrier. Two weeks into our trip into Argentina, Mika is saying more words but no phrases or sentences.

We had heard from the guy at the car rental agency that the Quebrada de Cafayate was beautiful, but we weren't expecting the amazing rock formations that were to follow. It was like a mini (in relative terms) Grand Canyon, complete with red cliffs, but seen from below, where you can look up and really appreciate the beauty of the formations. It felt more intimate and much more beautiful than Zion or Bryce, and if you are into that kind of nature, you really shouldn't miss it.

There are also some opportunities to climb up the rocks, most notably on "garganta del diablo," or the devil's throat. Mike and Camila got quite high up before we got bored of waiting for them. Mika couldn't make it past the first rock wall - it was too tall and slippery for her, and really I didn't want to help her as I've become the scary-cat mom and I'm always afraid she'll fall down the cliff.

The kids, once again, were very good in the car.

Once in Cafayate we had lunch at a very good and very cheap place, my 3-peso (US$1) milanesa was the best I'd had so far, where the owner-cum-waitress-cum-cook struggled to quiet her baby while taking care of her clients. We then drove down to the Quilmes ruins in Tucuman, and were lucky (or not so lucky as we'll later find out) to get there when it was very cloudy and not too hot. The ruins are quite extensive, and a part of them have been reconstructed though apparently not excavated. Mika was excited to see llamas and ran towards them with us following her. Two of the llamas were lying on the ground while another grazed nearby. As we approached them, Margarita warned Mika that llamas spit, so Mika was quite wary. The llamas seemed to be domesticated as we were able to get right next to them. Mika got right next to one until it turned its head towards her, probably expecting some food. Mika was scared but I convinced her to come next to me and the llama allowed us to pet its head.

Seeing the stone walls rising on the hill was interesting, but I needed some historical context to know what I was looking at, so I asked the local guide to give me some historical background. In all, the story of the Quilmes indians is very interesting. They were a diaguita tribe that settled in that part of Tucuman in the 9th century. There seems to be a lot of silly speculation as to where they came from. One particularly ridiculous theory is that they are related to the Araucano tribes in Chile as both groups fought the Spaniards very aggressively! On the other hand, they spoke a Diaguita language and seemed well integrated into the region, which seems to make it most likely that they came from nearby La Rioja.

In any case, they came, they settled, they developed their town, which they walled in defense of attacks by local nomadic raider tribes (hmm, might the need to defend themselves from raiders be what made them so aggressive?). They fell under the Incas who left soon after due to Spanish pressure and then started having conflicts with the Spaniards over agricultural lands. Eventually they started warring and finally they lost. The Spaniards are said to have used dirty tricks such as poisoning their water supply and cutting them off from their fields, but the point was they had to give up. Apparently even back then (the 18th century, I think) it wasn't good public relations for the Spaniards to just slaughter the whole population (an estimated two thousand people) so they resorted to the next best thing: forced migration. They moved them to a suburb of Buenos Aires, thereafter known as "Quilmes" (thus the fascination of this story, Quilmes is a very well known town, the home of a football team as well as Argentina's most popular beer). Of course, most of the quilmes died en route, about 200 made it to their new home, only to die off there. But have they died off? I seem to remember hosting some pages for the Quilmes indians some years back, though not as far back as the 18th century. I'll have to take a look when I get home.

We hung out around Quilmes for a little while, and then headed back to Cafayate where we were intending to stay for the night. That was not to be, however, as it had started to rain in the mountains. This meant that Mike could once again enjoy the lightning-and-thunder shows that have so fascinated him since we came here, but also that parts of the road got flooded. More accurately, the Arroyo Tolombon, which cuts through the National Route we were driving on and had been dry on the way there, had now become a river which was flowing with singular brutality. It was clear we wouldn't be able to make it through any time soon. And indeed, we were warned that going back may be dangerous as we'd passed another couple of very light streams that could become a river within seconds. We hung around for a while, but I finally convinced Mike to head back to the nearest town, Colalao del Valle, where we had seen a nice Hosteria. We braved the little streams (which remained just that) and went back to town where we found the guy in charge of the hosteria gone, but a store selling drinks and foodstuff open, so we got some cold drinks and cookies (Lord, I'm tired of cookies, Argentine cookies are not even good) and hung out there for a while.

Mike really wanted to go see the river, however. You can't blame him, he is a guy :) And even I have to admit that seeing the fury of the river, strong enough to move large boulders through its path, was cool. So was the instant feeling of community you get with the other travelers who find themselves on your side of the road under similar circumstances. On the way back, Mike stopped for a tarantula he saw crossing the road. We took pictures and Mike provoked the tarantula with a stick while I got the camera ready, expecting to document Mike's trip to the local hospital.

We hung around this road for more than an hour. A local had told us that after it stopped raining, it would take about half an hour for the river to go down. It had stopped raining so we waited and waited, we could see the river get lighter and lighter... but not enough. In the sky, dark clouds were moving in towards the mountain. If it started raining again, we'd have no chance. So we waited. A few trucks drove across (the Coca Cola must get through!), then a motorcycle, then a Land Rover. But there was no way we could make it across.

Eventually, though, we decided we weren't going to make it and as many people were making the same decision, we figured we better head back to the hosteria before it got full. And indeed, it was the right decision, as we filled the hosteria.

The hosteria itself was very cool. It was a relatively new building, and while simple and with somewhat uncomfortable beds, it was clean and friendly. By that time all of us travelers had become a little community, so there was a nice feeling of comradery. Among us, there was a family from Buenos Aires, a dad, mom, two daughters and boyfriend who were traveling by car exploring this part of the country. They later told me some not-to-be-missed places in San Juan and San Luis that I'll probably keep for our next trip to Argentina. There was a music professor at San Juan University and his wife who were coming to Salta to spend Xmas with their children. There was a plastic surgeon from Brazil (like me, born in Argentina but who'd been living in Brazil since he was 14), his wife and children who were traveling around, as Argentina has become cheap for Brazilians. And there was the couple from England we'd met earlier.

There was only one place to have dinner in town, a restaurant a few blocks south, so we all ended up there a little bit later that evening. The place was obviously not prepared for us, but they did their best to get tables and food ready. We shared a large table with the Brazilians and English and had a wonderful time talking. Both of our girls, amazingly, fell asleep in our arms at the table so we were for once able to have a dinner in peace. Usually eating out with the girls is really difficult. Camila, in particular, can't seat on a high chair, not only because Argentine high chairs lack any type of restraining devices, including a bar or something at the front, but because she hates them and wants to get off them ASAP. So we usually have to hold her. But she doesn't want to be held for long as is constantly trying to squiggle out or starts whining and complaining (and she does so very loudly). Often we can't let her down on the floor as the floors usually are dirty and she will find every microscopic and not-so-microscopic piece of trash there and put it in her mouth. But even when that's not the case, she then starts to complain she wants to get back in our arms. and then it's back up. Mika is better but she also gets tired quickly and starts complaining or playing with the table or the chairs and basically requires constant supervision. The fact that it's usually an hour between ordering and being served food at the table does not help, nor does the fact that we seldom get to have dinner before 9pm, when the kids are over-tired. So their falling asleep was a blessing as it made dinner much less stressful, even though we had to eat while holding them.

Dinner took forever to come - probably way over an hour this time - but when it came it was surprisingly good. I had a fugazzeta, or onion pizza, which was very, very tasty. Alas, it was a large size (only available) so I could only eat half of it. I accompanied it with a liter bottle of beer, and I drank most of it. Mike had a large and very good milanesa sandwich and Mika had one bite of the cheese sandwich she ordered. I had it for breakfast the next morning, so it didn't go to waste. The bill for all of this came to about US$4 or $5 - as we usually spend at least US$11 for dinner, it was a huge bargain.

Which brings me to the subject of Argentine restaurants and the fact that there is no correlation whatsoever between the price of a meal and the quality of it. Food is more expensive at ritzier places or better located places, but not necessarily better and in many cases much worse. Alas, food at cheap places is not always good so you can't base yourself on price either. It's basically the luck of the draw. That place was quite good, however, and as you can see super, super cheap.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and it was night night for us.

Day 9 - Quebrada de Humahuaca

Let me start by saying that there was a cow. And not just one, mind you, but veritable herds of them dispersed throughout the quebrada. To be fair, none of them were wearing red shoes or white lace gloves, though a few looked, at least from afar, as if they might have been wearing white smocks. I am satisfied, I may not have met the vaca from Humahuaca, but I surely saw some of her relatives.

If you are not Argentine, or you have not been hanging around me enough, you may now been wondering just what I'm talking about. The song, silly. Like most Argentine children I first heard of Humahuaca through a famous song by children's songwriter Maria Elena Walsh. The song goes like this (in my free translation):

There was once a cow
in the Humahuaca canyon
as she was very, very old
she was deaf in one ear
and although she was already a grandmother
one day she wanted to go to school.

She put on red shoes,
lace gloves and a pair of glasses
The teacher saw her, frightened, and said
"You are mistaken"
The cow answered
"Why can't I study?"

The cow dressed in white sat down on the first desk
We children threw chalk and fell off laughing
People came curious to see the studious cow
People arrived in trucks, on bicycles and in planes
and as the noise increased
nobody in the school studied.
The cow standing on a corner
mooed the lesson by herself.
One day all of us children became donkeys
and in that place of Humahuaca
the only sage one was the cow.

I've been singing this song to both my girls since they were small babies - indeed, when Mika was a couple of months old I had to sing it to her almost non-stop to calm her down - so it's been present in my mind for the last few years, planting the seed for my desire to visit Humahuaca. Yesterday we finally did.

I could possibly give you a lot of boring geological explanation as to how the Humahuaca canyon was formed millions of years ago (or thousands? I don't really know). But I'd have to look it up and you can do that yourself. Instead let me just summarize by saying that it is, indeed, beautiful.

I think I was expecting to encounter a mini-Grand Canyon, but the formations were actually quite different. The very-nicely maintained national road runs along the river bed (there wasn't much of a river in evidence, but the summer rains have barely started) so the rocky hills arise around us. In the southern part of the quebrada - the nicest part near Purmamarca - the multi-colored hills arise from the green, luscious vegetation. The contrast of the green and the red (and yellow, and ochre, and pink and purple) couldn't be more beautiful. Further north the vegetation becomes more sparce, and lone cactuses dot the rocky hills. The scenery is not nearly as breathtaking, though the drive is still pleasant.

The quebrada is dotted by villages and small towns, some of which have become big tourist destinations. Merchants selling Quechua souvenirs congregate in the central plazas in Purmamarca and Tilcara. Humahuaca, the largest, seemed the sleepiest at the times we visited. Most of the houses in the villages are built of mudbrick so they blend in well with their surroundings.

This time we left relatively early and took Route 34 to Jujuy before taking Route 9 into the quebrada. The kids traveled very well; they slept for much of the first time of the trip and didn't complain much at all. By the time we got to Purmamarca, however, we were all ready for a stop and something to eat. Alas, it was too early for their one obvious restaurant to open, so we had to content ourselves with drinks and cookies from a nearby kiosk. But just being out of the car was nice, as was sitting in the shade up the hill from the plaza just taking the breathtaking scenery in. Mike and Mika spent quite a lot of time looking at some huge ants - which we'd encounter over and over in the following days. Mika was fascinated, and while at first she wanted to step on them she quickly accepted the rule of "not stepping on bugs." She's at a very dogmatic period of her life, however, in which all rules are absolutes that apply equally to everyone, so every time we accidentally stepped on a bug later on we were scolded by her. She also scolds us for talking with food in our mouth, starting to drive without putting our seat-belts on and so forth. Annoying but oh, so cute.

It was here in Purmamarca that Mike made his best decision of the day by noting a sign that said "Paseo de los Colores" and deciding he wanted to go there. I made my best decision of the day by insisting we drive. This paseo ended up being a drive by amazing rock formations presenting many, many different colors. Definitely not to be missed.

From there we headed north, stopping at the Posta de Hornillos, a reconstructed way station from colonial and post-colonial times. The building also functioned as a museum of its own history and I was quite interested in learning how way stations worked at the time. Basically these were places where travelers could get a free space to sleep, a cheap meal and a change of horses at a reasonable fee. Belgrano, one of our independence heroes, is said to have slept at the posta on his way to kick some Spanish ass. And indeed later on, the posta served as a garrison. The building itself was very pleasant, it made a nice rest stop today. It also had very clean bathrooms. Indeed, I've been surprised on this trip by how clean and well-maintained are the bathrooms at many public buildings we've visited. Granted, half of them don't have toilet paper and those that do have that tough kind that so irks Mike, but that's an overwhelming improvement over the state of bathrooms in my childhood and even from our last visit. The upkeep of bathrooms at public buildings seems to have become a national priority. Way to go Argentina!

Our next stop was Tilcara where our first priority was lunch. We came across a restaurant, called El Colonial (Lavalle 348) that served "regional food." Now, I haven't been impressed in general by what passes for regional food in Northwestern restaurants. My complaint is with the very limited type of dishes they offer: humitas and locros (which, I think, are actually available throughout the country), roasted goat and goat stew (had both, both were good) and in a few places "picantes" - meats served with sauces based on yellow or red peppers, not necessarily spicy. I will say, however, that at least empanadas in the region are served with a side of a very spicy sauce, definitely of Andean origin.

In any case, this place was advertising a whole array of llama dishes, and while we'd heard from my aunt Stella that llama was not particularly tasty, we had to try it. The restaurant also offered a wide variety of dishes based on goat cheese, also a local specialty. We started by having some grilled goat cheese with oregano, which was very, very tasty. Clearly this was made with a semi-hard cheese, and I'd say it was even tastier than a provoleta. I'll have to try to find a similar cheese and make it back home. We also had a quite good goat cheese empanada and a llama empanada. This was also very nice, but spiced in such a way that you couldn't taste the meat at all. It was apparent, however, that it was a dry meat. We then shared a dish of llama steaks with garlic sauce and Spanish potatoes, a bife de chorizo and some Andean potatoes. The llama was indeed very lean and dry. It reminded Mike of pork, I thought it was even more tasteless than that. But the garlic sauce was heavenly, and almost anything eaten with that sauce would have been yummy. I say almost because I don't think it'd have helped the Andean potatoes. This was a dish consisting of a variety of local potatoes boiled and served with their skin. They were very cute, mind you, with their different shapes and colors (black, red, yellow and even green) but to me they all tasted like dirt.

My dirt-eating years are long gone, so I didn't find that appealing at all, and I even had to spit out the black potato to avoid gagging. Mike said he liked them, but I think he only ate a couple of tiny ones. In comparison, the Spanish potatoes that came with his dish (fried round potato slices) were very good. My bife the chorizo was OK but also on the dry side, especially after they cooked it some more so Mike could eat it.

After lunch we walked around the plaza and looked at the stalls some more, and apparently managed to lose Mike's cell phone which he had imprudently attached to the backpack. He was using it as a watch. He probably thinks he's getting a new one when we go back. Ha! [Mike - We'll see about that!] So even if we gave you our Argentine number don't call us, as we don't have that phone anymore.

At the plaza, Mike bought a cool little chess set for 45 pesos. The pieces were the Incas versus the Spaniards. He also bought Mika a cute little nativity scene while I distracted Mika with some ice cream.

We finished our visit to Tilcara with a brief visit to its Archaeological museum and then to the ruins of an indigenous village up on a nearby mountain. The ruins included reconstructed houses and it was amazing just how cool these mudbrick structures are inside. We "dug" them. Mike was amused by the sunbathers atop part of the ruins.

We were then off to Humahuaca. The kids fell asleep on the car so we got to enjoy most of the drive by ourselves. Humahuaca itself didn't merit more than a few minutes, though we did get out of the car so I could nurse Camila and everyone could stretch their legs.

We were immediately approached by a local child who offered to tell us a poem (in exchange for a tip, of course). We'd heard about the practice from my aunt and figured why not? The poem seemed kind of sad, something about a poor coya, and the boy hadn't learn the fundamentals of declamation yet, but I guess it was cute enough. We gave him one peso. I was then left with a teenager who insisted on giving me useless and oh so boring facts about the town (how many steps to the Indian monument, how many tons it weighed, who'd made it, etc. etc.) while I nursed Camila. A peso finally made him leave.

On the way out of town we came upon a wonderful statue to the "dear mother." Not one in particular, mind you, but all of them. Personally, I think all towns should have similar statues.

Still, that feeling of appreciation didn't last long as on the way back down the quebrada we encountered a statue to horses.

On the way back, we also stopped to see the cemetery at Maimara and Mike climbed atop one of the hills to get this photo of Maimara:

On our way up the quebrada, we'd skipped going to the salt fields west of Purmamarca and Mike wanted to try it now. I didn't think it was a wise idea as it was getting late and we didn't have much light left and the road to the salinas was a very windy dirt road. Still Mike wanted to try it. Only a couple of kilometers up the road, Mika started complaining about her stomach hurting (her indication for being car sick) so we decided to be good parents and head back. I think it was a good call as it got dark quite quickly.

The kids once again were quite good on the way back to Salta, and we felt we'd had a great day.

We didn't want to spoil it by taking them out to a restaurant, so we got a chicken for dinner instead. A whole rotisserie chicken was 18 pesos, or US$6! That's even more expensive than many chickens back home! Granted it was very yummy and quite large, but no wonder rotisserie chicken was such a treat for us when we were growing up.

Day 8 - Into Jujuy and Back

Two roads lead out of Salta and into San Salvador de Jujuy. Route 9 goes almost straight north, passing through luscious tropical and semi-tropical forests and offering views of deep valleys lost in vegetation. Though it's the most direct route, it's also the one that takes the longest, as it hugs the mountains that make up Salta's northern border and offers one tight curve after another. It's the kind of road that Mike would love to drive if he didn't have the rest of us in the car.

You first have to head east quite a few miles before reaching route 34, then drive a hundred kilometers or so before heading back west into Jujuy. But this road is mostly flat. It gets pretty high up - my ears popped a few times while we drove it - but it's mostly straight permitting speeds of 120 kph or even higher (our rental car is out-of-balance, however, so it starts to vibrate significantly if we go any faster). It's nowhere near as beautiful - think Interstate 5 between LA and San Francisco with greenery upon greenery around it - but it's much faster.

It was that road that I meant us to take when we headed out of Salta Wednesday morning (Dec. 21st), after getting our rental car (a Brazilian made VW Gol, which does not seem to be up to the quality standards of its North American siblings). But I got confused (surprise, surprise) and we ended up on Route 9 instead. We enjoyed it at first, until we found out that Mika suffers from car sickness (or, as she called it, "belly aches"). As a sufferer of the same affliction myself, I could sympathize - but there was not much I could do. Finally the inevitable happened and Mika threw up all over the back seat; she felt a bit better afterwards. Camila spent a good part of that trip cranky, Mike got tired of all the attention he had to pay to the road and I kept fighting nausea and the frustration of having one sick child, one cranky one and not being able to do anything. The road was beautiful, though.

Jujuy itself is a quaint town. Apparently it's divided into two centers, the old city and the new city, and of course we headed towards the old. Our first and only priority was to find lunch, as after emptying her stomach Mika was clamoring to fill it up again. Plus we needed to get out of the car. We headed to the main plaza, of course, Latin American towns are built on a basic grid centered on a main plaza, fronted, in turn, by the city's most important church (a Cathedral if the city is important enough) and the government building.

In Argentina in colonial times these arched two-story buildings were called cabildos; many of them have now been turned into casinos. When you go into a Latin American city and don't know where to head, the main plaza is always a good bet.

Jujuy's main plaza, unlike Salta's, is a lonely place. There were a few people hanging around, but no commerce and no energy - I imagine that must be centered in the new part of town. There was, however, a restaurant which we managed to miss and we ended up walking a few blocks before chancing on Chat Cafe, a place that served food, drinks and internet at the same time. We weren't really interested in the latter - with the girls, our only opportunity to blog is late at night, while they sleep - but the food part sounded good. It wasn't. Heed my words, if you are ever in Jujuy eat anywhere but Chat Cafe. I had a milanesa stuffed with ham and cheese which was tough and weird tasting. Mike, who'll usually chow down anything you put in front of him (OK, I'm exaggerating, but he's a dad, he's used to eating leftovers), would only take one bite. He, himself, ordered a super pancho, AKA a hotdog. Even that managed to disappoint. The bread must have been particularly bad as he only ate the sausage inside. Only Mika's lasagna was passable, and this she, of course, refused to eat. We are once again having food issues with Mika. She says she is hungry but when we order food for her, she barely takes a few bites - and then only under threat of not being able to get a treat later on. Later, of course, she gets hungry once again when it's not convenient to give her anything but a treat. Yes, the solution is simple: carry a variety of healthy snacks with us. It's more difficult to execute than one would imagine, however, as it involves buying fruit daily and in advance, and finding other healthy treats in a country that seems to put salt and sugar on everything. We'll have to be more industrious before out trip tomorrow, however.

Other than being sort of drab, San Salvador de Jujuy looked like any other Argentine city. This kind of surprised me as I'd been under the impression that Jujuy, even more than Salta, was different, that its cultural nexus was with Bolivian and the Andes, not with the pampas to the south. I had already been surprised at finding Salta so similar to my home city of La Plata, both in architecture and plant life. I figured out the architecture part during our visit to the cabildo museum the day before - apparently some time early in the century European style buildings came in vogue, and people started building them all over the city. The powers that be did not seem to like that so they finally passed a law requiring that all buildings be in the neo-colonial style. Ironically, the neo-colonial buildings have fared much better the passage of time than the European ones. The latter look old and dated, while the new ones look modern and even hip. The buildings we saw in Jujuy, neo-colonial or European, pretty much looked drab.

Our goal when heading out that morning had been to reach the natural park of Calilegua (or something like that, I'll admit to not having looked at the name of the park carefully, I must have an issue with national parks, the first test I ever actually failed was one in seventh grade that asked me to place on a map the different Argentina National parks. I couldn't then and I can't now. After a couple of days of exploring the city of Salta, I was pretty much done with the place, but I'd prepaid for five nights at the hotel, so I wanted to find trips that could be done as day-trips from Salta. My first choice had been the El Rey natural reserve, but apparently the recent rains had made the road impassable, so the guy at the rental car agency recommended Calilegua instead. So Calilegua had been our goal when we headed out of Salta that morning, but by the time we made it to route 34 out of Jujuy it was mid-afternoon, Calilegua was two hours away and Camila was tired and grumpy. And frankly, so was I. And Mika and Mike, I'm sure. So I said screw it and told Mike to head back to Salta instead. He wasn't too thrilled with the idea at first, until he realized that the only reason we were going to Calilegua in the first place was that I needed a place where we could go and return the same day. Granted, the place is supposed to have lots of birds and animals, but they're only active at dawn and dusk so why bother?

So we headed back to Salta, this time on 34, and the kids weren't too bad all in all. Once back in Salta, we went to San Lorenzo, a place I'd heard about both from my aunt Stella (who'd taken a tour of the northwest a few months before) and the lady at the tourist office. I wasn't quite sure what San Lorenzo was, but it turned out to be a small town up the hills from Salta, where many Salten~os seem to have weekend houses (or weekend mansions). It reminded me very much of City Bell, which served a similar purpose for the city of La Plata while I was growing up. We drove for a while, drooling at the beautiful houses with the green, green scenery and finally came across the "tourist stop," a little area by a stream where people can hire horses or three-wheelers to explore the area even more.

There was a cafe/restaurant and a couple of souvenir stands, but mostly it was a nice, quiet (though still popular) stop to hang out for a while. The girls and Mike really liked it.

Mika tried hard to play with two little girls who mostly ignored her but gave her some candy. I think she misses playing with kids. She talks about her friends back home and her cousin Sasha in La Plata incessantly.

Just a couple of days before, after coming upon some of the huge houses near the Anthropological museum (one of which was on sale for about $70K), I'd told Mike that I thought we should move to Salta. We liked the city, it has a great mixture of cosmopolitaness and provinciality, and loved the climate (temps in 70's and '80s all year long, with rain in the summer months). But after seeing San Lorenzo I changed my mind - I want one of those huge mansions on an acre of land where my kids can run and play while I sit comfortably on the veranda or swim in the pool. Alas, I don't think we could afford one of those houses even at Salta prices. In any case - not sour grapes or anything - but I've decided that the abundance of mosquitoes makes it impossible for us to live here. I don't know if Mike has taken pictures of our girls or not, but they both look terrible, as if they'd been hit by the chicken pox. Camila has four or five red dots on her face (and some on her limbs), while Mika has huge open sores (how do you stop a 3-year-old from scratching?) all over her face and body. Some of the bites have a red area ten times their size. I'm actually quite concerned at how bad her reactions to mosquitoes are; I'm going to have to discuss this with the doctor when we go back home. Meanwhile I'm covering them with OFF, burning mosquito-repellent spirals and I'm quite settled on staying in the Bay Area which is mostly mosquito-free.

The woman at the tourist office had mentioned that the local mall had a children's area, and after driving the kids back and forth to Jujuy for no good reason, I figured it was a good idea to check it out. It was soooo cool. The newish mall looked exactly like an American mall - only a little bit more up-scale and filled with smokers (Mike wondered what all that smoke does to the clothing for sale). It had, however, an amazing children's area. This included about 15 coin-operated rides (you know, like the ones they often have in front of supermarkets), several video games, a play-gym with a ball pit area for the younger crowd, bumper cars, a spinning swing and a small train, among other things. Everything looked bright and new - at least recently painted. Needless to say Mika had a great time. Camila enjoyed the ball pit and some the car-like rides too. She likes to stand behind the wheel and move it, and press buttons as well.

We stayed there for a while, but we were all tired, so despite Mika's loud and whiney protests, we headed out back to the hotel.

We couldn't face going out to dinner with Camila. Eating with her is quite difficult under the best of circumstances. Argentine restaurants have high chairs with no front tray or belt, so there is nothing that keeps the baby in place. This can work OK for older or quiet babies, but Camila uses her feet to push herself backwards and tries to escape almost as soon as you place her in one, so one of us usually has to hold her. That means we have to eat in shifts. That wouldn't be too bad if the food was served relatively quickly - but it never is. It seems that Argentine restaurants cook everything from scratch, as it often takes up to an hour before entrees arrive. An hour holding a squiggly, unhappy baby is just unbearable.

So we decided to get take out. We found a couple of places behind the Cathedral selling chicken and other foodstuff and last night we got a couple of empanadas, a meat ball (that is to say a dough ball filled with meat) and half a chicken. Mike really liked the empanadas, but he LOVED the rotisserie chicken. It's really expensive - at US$6 for a whole chicken no wonder rotisserie chicken was such a rare treat for me growing up - but it's so much yummier than the similar chickens back home. I'm not sure why, the guy at the store swears it's the secret recipe they've been making for more than 40 years. In any case, it was good, and eating at the hotel was much less stressful than eating out.

After dinner I fell asleep with Camila, Mika soon joined me and soon we were all resting in the arms of Morpheous. Mike stayed up blogging, and apparently watching a fashion show at the plaza. I'm sure he'll have much to say about that himself.

Midnight in Salta and there's a fashion show next to the plaza.

Alas, it's now 1am and I need to head to bed. We're now one day behind in our blogging, I'm not sure how or when we'll catch up but we'll try.

Second Day in Salta

Our second night in Salta was a hard one. Our room was great, though filled with voracious mosquitoes that ate us alive (especially the girls) during the night, and our beds were comfortable, but something was bothering Camila and she woke up often. At least one time she was inconsolable, crying and crying and refusing to nurse. I think she might have been having a night terror as I had to turn on the light before I could put her down again. Fortunately Mika can sleep through pretty much anything.

Outside the night was beautiful, we were having a summer storm and could see the lightning and hear the thunder all around us. Nice.

We woke up around 9am got somewhat put together and went down to breakfast. It was our second morning here and we'd already grown bored of the breakfast offerings. These consist of somewhat stale sweet medialunas, hard crackers and semi-toasted sliced bread, butter, jam and dulce de leche, frosted flakes and a fruit salad Mike didn't like at all but Camila enjoyed. The coffee is pretty poor, and the juices are not natural. Not much for a carb-conscious person to consume. Later, we bought some salami and cheese so Mike can at least make himself a sandwich.

After breakfast, Mike went to get some shampoo and conditioner and Mika and I cleaned up the room a little bit. Then it was time for showers for the grown ups and getting ready to hit the town. I had planned out a whole late morning of churches and museums, starting with the cathedral, but as soon as we got downstairs Mika insisted that she wanted to see a museum first. They are all around the plaza where our hotel is located so it's not a big deal. We headed to the Uriburu museum, but it was closed - apparently due to electrical issues. Mika refused to go to the nearby San Francisco church so instead we headed to the museum at the cabildo, the old municipal building. The museum was pretty nice but visiting it was a pain. Camila was cranky. There are no butts around it, Camila is just a cranky baby. She rarely seems to be happy, at least when she's with us, she's always complaining or crying. The only times when she's quiet is when someone else is paying attention to her, and even then for just a few minutes. Visiting museums with a cranky baby is pretty much hellish, and doing it with a preschooler who really doesn't want to be there and wants to whine about everything is just hell. It always seems to be too cold or too hot, she's too hungry or too thirsty, well it's pretty clear that she's bored but please, we need to see things too! By the end of the visit Camila had fallen asleep and Mika was pretty tired too. Still, she now wanted to see the pink church, aka the Cathedral, so we headed around the square to this building.

From the outside, the Salta Cathedral (built at the end of last century) looks like a large neo-colonial building whose most remarkable feature is its pink paint job. It's pretty but somewhat modest. Its facade does not prepare you for its luscious interior. The interior walls are all beautifully painted with symbols and scenes that go high up into its cupulas or whatever the raised ceiling parts are called. There is a lot of gilded wood, lots of beautiful representations of saints and what have you, and just a general feeling of accessible luxury. Unlike most cathedrals I've been to, you can feel comfortable here. In all, we really liked it.

The interior of the Salta Cathedral

After the church we headed to the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology (Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana), a new institution built around the discovery of three frozen Inca children in a nearby volcano in 1999. The three children had been taken there as part of an offering to the Inca gods, and had quite naturally frozen to death. They've been perfectly preserved and the museum offers a showing of the items found with them as well as explanations of the archaeological expedition and the background of the sacrifice.

Some of the artifacts on display - not Camila

You can't see the actual frozen bodies - apparently they have to be kept frozen - but you do see pictures as well as film (also available online - http://www.maam.org.ar) of the findings. It was all very interesting, though once again Camila was fussy and Mika impatient and I wasn't able to spend as much time looking at things as I wanted. I did entertain the idea of offering my kids to the Inca gods as a sacrifice, but they probably wouldn't stop crying or complaining about how high they were going or how cold they were. Whoever said that you can't travel with children is right.

The coolest petroglyph ever!

Mika is not impressed by petroglyphs that are hard to decipher and kept asking why they didn't use paper.

After the museum we stopped at the museum cafe, as they had wi-fi. Mike went to the hotel to get his computer and Mika and I ordered food. Unfortunately the cafe's food offerings were very limited: empanadas, humita, a salad and sandwiches. I got a couple of empanadas and figured we'd give the humita a try. Humita is some type of corn concoction, kind of like polenta. In this case it was mixed with cheese. Mike, who had it, said it wasn't bad. The empanadas were fine; in the salta tradition, they had potatoes inside. The kids were (you guessed it) fussy and impatient, and the wi-fi was coming and going, so I was growing frustrated myself. I wanted to get something more serious to eat but couldn't imagine going out to lunch with these kids, so decided to go and buy some cooked chicken from one of the stores I'd seen the day before, taking Camila with me.

I got a bit lost, but Camila fell asleep on the walk which made me very happy. I finally came across a couple of chicken stores on the street behind the Cathedral, but the lines were too long and the spaces too small to wait comfortably there, so I decided to skip it and go back to Mike at the cafe. When I got there, I found that Mika had fallen asleep on the chair. She looked cute, but uncomfortable. By then, Mike was no longer hungry so I decided to order a cheese sandwich and be done with lunch. I figured, as long as the kids were sleeping we probably should stay there. As luck would have it Mika woke up right after I placed my order, and Camila not long after. Well, at least they'd slept a few moments.

We then all headed to the hotel for naps. Alas, I was the only one who was sleepy enough for one. In all, I think I slept almost three hours this afternoon, though Mike kept waking me up by bringing me Camila. She'd nurse a little and then climb over me to get to the phone and play around. I think he brought her to me 3 or 4 times before she finally fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Mike, Mika and Camila were having a good time in the living room. I heard Mike read to Mika, and he also made her innumerable paper dolls for her to play with. Here is where having an extra room became so useful - I'm going to have to try to get apart-hotels or suites in the future, without breaking the bank, of course.

I finally woke up around 6pm and Mike and Mika were gone - I figured they'd gone back to the wi-fi place as Mike's computer was gone. I guessed right, thought he'd also gotten stamps and postcards and Mika spent more time feeding the pigeons. You'll get one soon, if you're nice :) - a postcard, not a pigeon.

Mika woke up just as they came back home and we quickly (for us) got ready and went down again to visit the San Francisco church (very nice, more modest than the cathedral but still quite ornate - doesn't seem like St. Francis would approve) and then the art museum. Yep, here, once again, Camila was cranky and Mika was difficult. Why are my kids such a pain?

After the museum we got some foodstuff at a supermarket and then came back to the hotel.

Camila had a great time holding cold bottles at the store.

Then we went to rent a car. We found one, and should be getting it tomorrow at 10am. It's going to be $50 a day, plus gas, so we are already blowing our $100 a day budget (the hotel is another $50) but the people at the travel agency said it was the best way to explore the region. I hope that Camila will be OK in the car, in the past she's been a pain. But we'll just have to deal with it, it's not like she'd be happy go lucky outside the car either.

Finally we went to the Pena Balderrama for dinner.

The sidewalk sign for Pena Balderrama.

A pena is a restaurant which offers a folkloric show in addition to dinner. My aunt Stella had recommended this pena, and was also recommended by the people at the tourist office. Unfortunately nobody else was there. The woman at the tourist office mentioned that the shows usually start at 9:30pm, and we got there around 9:50pm, but we were the only people in the restaurant until we left around 11pm. The musicians were there, but they didn't perform for us alone. We are in the low tourist season and it is a weekday, but how sad if they had a pena and nobody came! Then again, people may go to them much later (but really, how late can you have dinner?). In any case, with our kids, 9:30 is as late as we could push dinner. Really, given how cranky Camila is I think we may have to start eating at our hotel room from now on.

As the place was empty, I did let Camila crawl around a bit - though I had to stop her from leaving the restaurant - and Mika was able to go to the paved park (Paseo de las Poetas) across the street and play around. She had a lot of fun.

After that we came home, I put the kids and Mike to sleep and blogged. It's now 1am and I'm going to take off my contacts and go to bed. I hope the mosquitoes won't eat us up tonight as much.

Nighty night.

First Day in Salta

What was the best part of the flight from Buenos Aires to Salta? A flight delay of more than two hours? Finding wireless Internet but no way to purchase access? Having our seats changed so that we were no longer sitting together? Being in the last row where there were no windows AND no reclining seats? The smell of urine from the nearby bathrooms? All of that was quickly forgotten as Camila fell asleep on Margarita and Mika fell asleep on my arm.

The first day in Salta started with a change of rooms. We had not gotten the room we asked for and the night person said he could not change anything. So Marga went and talked to the hotel staff once we got up and they ended up putting us in a suite on the 9th floor overlooking the Plaza 9 de Julio. It is very nice. Margarita noted how extremely nice the staff was. After we looked at some other rooms, we think it may be the nicest room in the hotel.

The view from our hotel room.

After Then we went to the tourist office to get recommendations of what to see and how to get there. As we had promised Mika, we went to the park (plaza) afterwards, where Mika and Camila had a blast chasing the pigeons. It seems that every plaza where pigeons congregate, so do vendors of pigeon food, and Salta was no exception. Mika had a great time throwing two bags of food for the pigeons.

We tried to go to the cathedral, but we were wearing shorts, so we had lunch at Cafe Venus instead. Marga ordered a pizza large enough for all of us to enjoy.

Then off to the teleferico (gondola) for the ride up to the top of Cerro San Bernardo. On the way, Mika fell asleep, and we were amused by a statue of a dog at the Parque San Martin. Mika woke up as the spray from the tall stream of water shooting up from the lake, where you could rent boats. We made a note to come back on a warm day and get ourselves soaked.

The teleferico cost four pesos each way for adults, so a total of 16 pesos for all of us. There are also stairs and a road up, but there was no way we were going to climb stairs or walk all the way up with two kids. At the top, we immediately made our way to a little cafe where Mika had an ice cream bar and Margarita and I had some cold drinks.

Camila, as has become the norm, was quite difficult. I think part of it is because we are unable to let Camila get on the ground anywhere. In most places, there is either dog poop, bird poop, trash, glass, or some combination of all of the above. Parks and plaza look nice, with their grassy fields, but dogs roam around all over the place.

Mika and I headed off to explore while Margarita stayed at the cafe. Mika had some fun climbing the rock stairs next to the group of transvestites or trans-sexuals (I'm not sure which). I thought it was cool that they were here, in a relatively small city in northwest Argentina. Then we went to a playground, which cost one peso for 15 minutes, but it was a very cool playground, with lots of equipment made from treated wood: a couple of houses, a toddler play structure complete with slides, and a bunch of rope bridges with wooden slats. We started off with a swing, which was kind of short, so Mika couldn't go as high as she wanted. Unfortunately, part of the swing caught on my shirt, causing my shirt to rip and Mika to fall out of the swing. She was fine, but was eager to try something else after that.

Mika enjoying herself at the Cerro Santo Bernardo playground

On the way out of the playground, Mika saw a bunch of men stretching out their legs and asked me what they were doing. I told her that they were exercising, as it seems to be a popular way to work out by running or bicycling up to to the top of Cerro Santo Bernardo. Mika said she wanted to exercise too, so we headed to the same area and Mika swung on some of the bars and tried to imitate the people she saw stretching. I reminded her that we had left Margarita alone, so we headed back to check out the view.

While we looked at Salta below, Mika noticed the large ants and began to try to step on them, because they were "bothering" her. This may have been because she asked if she could step on one of the large cockroaches we saw one night in La Plata and I agreed. While I am not an animal rights activist, I also see no need to kill bugs or anything else just for the fun of it. So I tried to explain this philosophy to Mika as "if the bugs are bothering you, then go away from them, instead of stomping on them." Now she reminds Margarita and me to be careful not to step on bugs with our shoes or the stroller.

The view of Salta from Cerro Santo Bernardo

The trip down the teleferico was even more fun as we decided to wave and stick out our tongues at the other people coming up. I also let Camila stand up in the seat with Mika and look out as we went down.

Camila and Mika check out the view from the teleferico.

At the base of the teleferico, I looked around the stores as Margarita took Mika to the restroom. Camila was in the backpack and she managed to "buy" us a mobile by grabbing and breaking one as I looked around the store. Oh well. Twelve pesos (US $4) for that mistake. By that time, Camila needed to nurse, so Mika climbed up onto a nearby stump and sung and danced, much to the amusement of the nearby local vendors.

Mika performs for the locals.

Then it was off to the Anthropology Museum (Museo Antropologico Juan M. Leguizamon). First we passed a memorial to some of the "disappeared" of Salta. This included each of the names of the "disappeared" on a tree and we photographed them all to include on the Desaparecidos web site.

The museum was up a bit of an incline from Avenida Hipolito Yrigoyen and Margarita and Mika walked up past the General Martin Miguel de Guemes monument while I pushed the stroller up the adjoining street. Mika had a blast climbing on the monument until shooed away by one of the omnipresent police. I managed to pinch some nerves in my thighs on the way up, but they seemed to come un-pinched as I waited at the top.

The museum was just two pesos (one peso each for adults) and it was immediately obvious that the museum was less than fabulous because the interior was hot and humid - not the ideal conditions for the storage of delicate artifacts. The collection of ceramics (mostly Tastil) was interesting, but most fascinating for Mika was the mummified woman. She loved examining it and pointing out its features. The rocks with petroglyphs didn't interest her much, but the displays of food, some it relatively new, was so inviting that I had to remind her not to touch them.

Mika's favorite display at the Anthropology Museum

After we had exhausted the displays of the small and uncomfortable museum, we purchased a number of items made by local craftsman. In addition to giving us a good idea of what we should pay for similar items at more tourist-oriented stores. We also learned that a portion of the amount we paid funds the museum - and it certainly could use it.

Camila takes on the stairs at the Anthropology Museum

The walk back from the museum was uneventful, but we did see some lightning from an incoming storm and we the rain started coming down before we made it all the way back to the hotel. Our feet were sore from all the walking and we tried to get the kids to take a nap before we headed out for dinner. We wanted to go to the local equivalent of a luau, but the kids would need a nap if we were to manage it - and they wouldn't nap.

Instead, we headed for dinner to Cava de Piedra, where we had read that they serve llama. We sat on the plaza with an umbrella shielding us from the rain. But the rain eventually forced us to move closer to the restaurant where the building overhang could protect us from the downpour. The waiter informed us that llama wasn't available, so I ordered the chicken in a sauce of honey and Salta dark beer with andine potatoes. Margarita ordered the goat, hoping that it wouldn't remind her at all of the goat she had eaten in India. We also splurged and ordered a bottle of the local Maximum Roble by Bodegas el Porvenir for 50 pesos. It was a mixture of 60% Malbec, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 10% Syrah. The waiter made a big deal of airing the wine and making sure that Margarita noted the difference in taste from when it was first opened to after it had been decanted and aired. We were very happy with the wine and with the food we ordered. Unfortunately, before the meal had even started, Camila made it clear that she had reached her limit for being awake and Margarita and I both had to walk with her for periods of time to soothe her. Mika really enjoyed the goat as well and even managed to down two fruit shakes.

The waiter also explained a question that had been perplexing me: why there were so many police. Apparently, Salta is trying to get more tourism and a large police presence is part of that strategy. It's not that Salta is dangerous or has big problems. The first night we we here, there were no less than a dozen police around the one square block plaza. They are literally everywhere. It seems that they have been hired so quickly that their patches aren't even sewn onto their uniforms. I explained, through Margarita, that such a visible police presence made me feel more nervous than secure. I don't think he understood that.

Another thing that I've really noticed are vendors that walk up to you in the plaza or at restaurants and try to sell you things. Things people walked up to us an tried to sell to us: roses, perfume, lottery tickets, cherries, coca leaves, gardenias, a calculator/clock/calendar, radio, alfajores, pencil sketches of the cathedral and religious items, strawberries, Christmas cards, and jewelry. We bought the gardenias for Mika and the alfajores, but, at four for one peso, we were scared to eat them. We also bought a bag of coca leaves for five pesos - for purely educational purposes, mind you.

The view from our hotel at night

Day 6 - In transit

We spent Sunday pretty much in transit. We woke up at 9:30 am, had breakfast and then proceeded to take showers and get our luggage ready to check out of the hotel. For us, this is always a laborious activity, the kids (and us) are very good at spreading our stuff everywhere. Plus this time I wanted to separate what we were taking with us to Salta from what we were leaving behind (mostly gifts for others). The hotel where we were staying was only two blocks from Gladys' apartment so it made no sense to take a taxi, and yet we couldn't comfortably move all our stuff in one trip, so Mike left with Camila and a couple of bags while I took a shower. He was, however, unsuccessful on his mission of taking the stuff up to Gladys' apartment. Crime is such a concern in La Plata that many buildings, such as hers, have stopped using the buzzer to open the doors to the building and instead require someone with a key to come down and open the door. Yes, that's right, the doors are locked on both sides, so that if you don't have a key you can't get out as well as in. This doesn't seem to safe a situation in case of a fire, but as there are so many large windows on the building reception I won't be too worried about her getting out if need be. Her making it down the stairs seems a larger concern giving her poor mobility and how painfully difficult it is for her to go down even one step. Anyway, I digress.

After going in the previous night, Gladys and Eva had misplaced the apartment keys. No matter what they did, they couldn't find them. They looked and looked and looked, Gladys seem ready to have a heart attack about it, but they couldn't find them. So Mike had to make his way back. Meanwhile I had assembled all our luggage, so we just brought it downstairs so we could check out. Then Gladys called and said they'd borrowed another set from the super, so we headed to Gladys' house with all our stuff. Mike had to make another trip to bring the rest of the stuff. Are you snoring now? God, can I be more boring in my descriptions! This one is putting me to sleep.

OK, let's hurry this up. Basically we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon hanging up at Gladys', with her and my cousin Eva. We talked, had lunch (pizza and empanadas), I tried to do some laundry (couldn't get it dried in time) and basically passed the time until the car service came to pick us up at 2:30pm. Then it was a matter of saying goodbye - Gladys was sad that we were leaving, she even went down the two steps off the front door to say goodbye.

The taxi ride was long (45 minutes or so) and uneventful. Mika and Camila slept most of the way. We talked a bit and looked out the window. Nothing much to see, beyond fields, cows, birds, slums and cheap housing which I assume is being built for the slum dwellers.

Checking in was also uneventful, but we had forgotten to remove the Swiss army knife from my diaper bag so I had to check in another bag with it. Even this only took a few minutes.

Unfortunately the plane was late - as in two hours and we'd actually arrived the recommended two hours early for it. So we basically ended up spending all late afternoon at the airport. Aeroparque, the Buenos Aires airport is pretty comfortable as airports go, though they don't really have an area for kids to play in and they kept shooing Mika away from the toys at the toy store. I spent some time sleeping or half-sleeping on the seats while Mike took the girls to look at planes and so forth.

Finally we got to board around 7:30pm. Unfortunately they'd had to change planes and they couldn't get us seats together. Even more unfortunately, only one of the seats they got for us was approved for Camila. Apparently they only have an extra oxygen mask at selected seats. Once in the airplane we were able to exchange seats with other people so that we were all able to sit together, but those seats were at the back of the plane, they didn't recline at all and they were next to the very stinky bathrooms. The smell wasn't as big a problem when the plane was in the air, but it sucked when we were still on the ground.

We flew Austral to Salta and it was easy to notice the difference between American and Argentine pilots. On the way to Argentina, the American Airlines pilot had the seat belt light on the whole trip, even though the trip was basically smooth. I'm not sure if that was for liability issues or just to keep the passengers in the seat, I can't actually imagine it was for safety issues. Of course, a few hours into the trip I don't think either I or the other passengers believed on that light at all. The Austral pilot, on the other hand, turned off the seat belt light as soon as we were at altitude, and then had it off most of the trip, only turning it on a couple of times when we hit turbulence.

Camila slept in my arms most of the flight, and Mika slept on her seat, so the flight was mostly uneventful though not particularly comfortable. Once at the airport we couldn't find a remis - there was a stand with a longish lines of passengers behind it, but nobody attending it. So we took a minivan for $5 each. A taxi might have been cheaper and more comfy, but God knows how long it would have taken us to find one. As it was the trip wasn't bad, except that Camila was very sleepy and we pretty crowded. She slept for a little but woke up and cried loudly, quite annoying in such a small environment. Finally I had to put her on my breast so she would calm down.

We got to the hotel around 11 to 11:30pm and were given a not very nice room. However, the guy in charge of the hotel was just the night guardsman and couldn't do anything. We figured for one night it didn't matter, so we just settled in to sleep.

Cathedral and Republica de los Ninos

Some days you just gotta sleep. Since I got to sleep relatively early (before 1am), I was up before everybody else and began to watch a show.

Alas, everyone woke up before the show finished, but by then it was quite late and we didn't manage to leave the hotel until about 11am.

Off to the La Plata Cathedral so that we could go up the tower and get a view of the city. From a book at the Cathedral bookstore, we learned that the La Plata Cathedral is the largest neo-Gothic cathedral built in the 20th century. However, since that style is somewhat dated, it may be the only such cathedral built last century. The two large towers of the church are called Jesus and Mary. Jesus has the elevator. As we paid to enter the museum, which is required to use the elevator, we were warned that we may have to wait 40 minutes because of a large group that was ahead of us. That gave us a chance to check out the artwork, some of which was very cool. In particular was one large painting of the Cathedral superimposed on a map of La Plata that Margarita particularly liked. I will try to get a print of it if I can.

In another room was a bunch of modern art and even though there were quite a few paintings, they were all by the same artist and they all looked very similar. A room full of religious art was mostly boring except for a painting that resembled a very famous picture of an Afghan woman with piercing eyes and a steel sculpture of the earth with silver-colored land surrounding a center containing a fist with a nail embedded in it.

Mika imitates one of the gargoyles.

Mika said she was hungry, but when Marga gave her a choice between getting something to eat and going with me to the tower, she chose me. It was a small thing, but it made me so happy, nonetheless. We got in what we though was the line for the elevator, but it turned out that most of the group of kids were waiting for others to come down the elevator. So it was a short wait and up we went. Mika ended up being more interested in the stairs near the elevator than in any view available from the tower. She was also interested in the statues near the top and soon she was asking to go back down. The woman working the elevator offered to let Mika press the buttons, but Mika wasn't interested.

Once we were back down on the ground, Marga bought Mika some really dry nasty chocolate chip cookies before we went to pick up our tickets for Salta. On Saturday, one of the main commercial streets is closed to cars and from afar it looks like a street fair. However, it was really just some seats with umbrellas in the middle of the tables and it was really hot, so we hailed a taxi and headed for Republica de los Ninos.

On the way, we passed Carrefour and (gasp) Wal-mart. The ride was about 10 pesos, which is about US$3.30. Republica de los Ninos is the closest thing to Children's Fairyland and Disneyland anywhere near here. In addition to the train, carnival-like rides and kid-size buildings (government, mosque, church, castle), there is a "farm" which is more like a petting zoo, pony rides, bumper cars, and more.

Our first ride was the train, which Mika waited for quite patiently. I'm sorry to say that one of the things that Mika has learned to do well is wait - I think she's quite patient for a three-year-old. There was a group of school children in front of us and the teachers were leading the kids in a variety of songs while they waited. Mika, ever the social butterfly, tried to join in the singing.

Mika tried to make friends with this school girl.

The ride was quite long, which makes it a good deal at one peso for adults and 50 centavos for kids, but that meant that Mika got bored about halfway through, after she had seen the bouncer and other rides.

Camila, at one of her happier moments.

From the train we headed for lunch, but got side-tracked by a show by Adolfito, a clown that performed near the entrance to the park. Mika and Camila were both enthralled by his performance and Mika was disappointed when he didn't call on her as one of his volunteers.

After a lunch at one of the many eateries, we saw part of Aladdin, which was based on the Disney movie, including the big blue genie and a rendition of "A Whole New World." I was disappointed that it wasn't based on the original story, but Mika was quite happy.

Then we were off to the rides: two pesos each for tickets to some rides and 1.50 for others. But before then, Mika demonstrated how she could jump over a puddle, just before she fell backwards into the puddle, getting her clothing and underwear soaked and muddy. She was a little upset but quickly recovered as we changed her clothes. I'd like to think her mild reaction was because neither Marga nor I were upset at all. Mika waited in line for what seemed like forever for a bouncer until she was told as she tried to enter that she was too short. The bouncer was in the shape of a whale with a mouth that opened and closed. When the mouth was open, it revealed a ladder that you could climb up and go down the whale's "throat" on a slide. I was heart-broken for Mika, so we headed to the bumper cars. We watched as another father and his young son had a blast. We were joined at the bumper cars by only one other person - a young girl, so I expected a tame ride. At first, we had a few gentle bumps against the only other moving car and I foolishly let my guard down. That's when we had a hard bump and the flimsy seat belt Mika was wearing failed to prevent her face from flying forward into the padded front area of the car. Mika held her nose as she screamed in pain, but there was no blood or any evidence of anything serious. We stopped the ride and rejoined Camila and Margarita.

Mika spotted the ponies and off we went for a pony ride. She wanted to ride the white pony, but we were told it was tired and needed to rest. For 2.5 pesos, Mika got on the pony and I walked the pony back and forth for a while. Mika was thrilled. It was at this time Marga told me that the battery of the camera was dead. At one point, the pony stopped and refused to move. I pulled hard on the rope, but the pony wouldn't budge. I began wondering what I was going to do, but after a few minutes, I adjusted my position and the pony began to walk again.

We intended to head to the farm, but Mika became fascinated by these two birds that were flying at a father and his two kids. It turns out that this was nesting pair of birds protecting their ground level nest. The father and his kids kept on taunting the birds and waving a hat and plastic bottles at the birds when they flew close to them. They kept this up until Marga and Camila joined us and then Marga and another man both told the father and his kids to stop bothering the birds. They stopped.

At the farm, which is essentially a petting zoo, we paid one peso each. We spent most of our time in a childrens' play area with a huge foam mat, foam animals, and large foam blocks. Mika and Camila had a blast. There was a boy about Mika's age as well and his mother kept telling him to be careful, don't do things, etc. I wanted to tell her to just leave her boy alone and let him play, but even if I spoke Spanish well enough, I probably wouldn't have.

When we finally went to the area where the animals were roaming around freely, we couldn't buy any food for them, so we fed pieces of bread to some of the goats, geese, and guinea fowl. I managed to catch a duck with a fluffy head of feathers and let Mika touch it. Later, I did the same with one of the guinea fowl. Mika found a couple of girls to play with and we left her alone as they climbed the wood play structure and chased each other around.

It was getting near closing time, but we still had tickets, so Mika took rides on a small ferris wheel, an airplane ride, and a spinning apple ride. I also rode with her on a little train. When it was time to go, she was ready and made no complaints.

On the way out, we walked into a musical about the birth of Jesus. The performance was about what you would expect at a children's park where the entrance fee is the equivalent of US$1. Some of those people just shouldn't be singing. Mika enjoyed it, especially when they were using a real baby to represent Jesus. Shortly after the wise men showed up, a large stray dog made its way to where the actors were performing. In this area were some bales of hay intended to represent the stable where Jesus was born. The stray dog proceeded to lift its leg and....well...I'll let you complete the thought. Margarita and I cracked up, but we seemed to be the only ones. When we recognized the part where the Romans were going to take all the babies and kill them, we tried to leave before Mika realized what was happening. Too late. Mika saw the "bad guys" (Romans) taking the babies and quick-thinking Margarita told her that Super-Kofi and then Superman was going to save the babies. Mika didn't buy it, but it was enough to distract her from what was happening and we escaped.

Now that we were leaving the park, we realized that we had no ride back and we were unlikely to encounter a random taxi to take us back to La Plata. Fortunately, there was a remis company across the street and we got back to La Plata for 10 pesos, plus a two-peso tip.

We got back at about 8pm and called Gladys for dinner. She was being visited by Eva, Margarita's cousin, so we invited them both to dinner and decided upon Cerveceria Alemania, which was within walking distance of Gladys' apartment. Gladys doesn't get out much these days, but Eva and Margarita helped her walk the 1.5 blocks to the restaurant. I had the lomo (filet mignon), Margarita had the veal with mustard sauce, and Mika had gnocchi. As usual, Camila was a handful at dinner, forcing Margarita and I to eat in shifts and finally forcing me to leave so that Margarita could enjoy dinner with her aunt and cousin.

Gladys on the left and Eva on the right.

Camila cried most of the way home and cried for 10 to 15 minutes as I tried to soothe her to sleep. When I was finally exasperated and removed her from my chest to the bed, she fell silent as I sang "Old McDonald" to her. Mika soon joined me in singing, and suggesting animals like a pink pony for the next verse. By the time Margarita came back to the hotel, Mika was watching Shrek and Camila was fast asleep.

Tomorrow we're off to Buenos Aires and then a flight to Salta.

Museum, Bosque, and Cathedral

It's 11:30pm and I finally get some time to blog. Camila is sleeping in her stroller, while Mika is awake in bed next to a sleeping Mike. Our hours here have been crazy, seldom getting to bed before midnight and yet usually waking up by 9 am. The kids are exhausted, though I've managed to take naps the last couple of days.

Mike hasn't been able to do much blogging either, so I figure I'd take on the task. As you may have surmised, our first day here we didn't do much, just hang out with Gladys and go to the travel agency. Our second day we went to the zoo, then hang out with Gladys, then with my cousin Mariana and her new baby and finally at my aunt Stella's house. Yesterday we followed a similar pattern, except that we managed to do even less :) It took us quite a while to get out of the hotel. It always does, getting two kids changed and dressed, the two of us showered and the room in a clean enough state that they can actually make the beds takes at least an hour of our mornings. Breakfast at the hotel is also often a slow affair as we have to take turns eating and holding Camila.

When we were finally out, we went to Glady's house, and then we went together to run an errand. We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon at her house, just hanging out. I was feeling nostalgic about all the items in her house that were so omnipresent in my childhood. Little things such as the measuring spoons, the fan, the clock, nothing too fancy or beautiful - but all the more noteworthy for that. These everyday items were such a part of my landscape for 14 years while growing up, only to go away for over 20 years and suddenly come back. I'm still in a place of emotional dissonance. I see them, use them, and it's hard not to find myself back there, 20 years ago. I think only now it's becoming clear to me, however, that that's a chimera. Life in La Plata may look the same as back then (only I have my own family along and a lot more spending money), but it's not. I'm no longer a little kid, my parents are not here anymore and will never be, and Gladys will die only too soon (she's 88, I can be optimistic, but her time is limited of necessity). I fantasize about coming back and living here, but it won't h