CM3's Argentina Adventure

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.