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.