Backdated from Monday, April 25, 2005 11:55pm-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Jujuy Terminal, San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina.

Brrr. Waiting for remise to Salta cuz Bolut, the only company with
buses still going there, doesn't leave until at least 1:20am and takes
2.5 hours instead of under 2 in a smaller vehicle. Which makes this
seem a more reasonable, albeit sketchier, option. Ariel and Gabriel,
who are also waiting for the Remis driver to appear, I´m not too sure
about, but they apparently own a bar called La Palmira (the same name
as the hospedaje I stayed at in Iruya) in Jujuy, so at least there´s a
reference if I disappear or something…

Spent most of a beautiful (cold, cloudy) day in Purmamarca with
Gonzalo A., an intriguing painter/shopkeeper who I somehow connected
with upon visual impact. He took me to La Peña, his uncle Mario's
restaurant, where he was working on a huge canvas and has some of his
earlier works displayed. Then we went and hung out in his aunt's
shop, where he works, and I finally got my hands on a somewhat tuned
guitar and tried working out the song I've been trying to write in my
head for weeks. Periodically, we popped back into La Peña (only a
block away), where I watched him paint and took a bunch of pictures
and ate humitas (corn-cheese mixture wrapped and boiled in the corn
sheath, sorta like a tamale) .

Next, we walked to El Caminito de los Colorados together, on the way
stopping by the house he is (re)building on the land his grandmother
left him and his late great-grandmother's house and land (replete with
¨artistically¨ unkept fields and living space and visiting cats),
where he is officially living until the former's completion. The
scenery there is really something else. I didn't make it out to las
Salinas (salt deposits), which would have been a longer, hired
excursion, but I figure I've gotta leave something for another time…

Back to the shop, more of the same, and La Peña (gotta love small
towns, eh?), where this time I hung out with the chef in the kitchen
and learned to make empanadas (i.e., stuff the pre-made dough circles
with cheese-onion-red pepper filling and fold with little ridges).
I'm a natural! Plus I got the bonus priviledge of getting to eat on
the job – I opted not to accept the drink offers from the moso
(waiter), who had obviously been helping himself a bit too much in
that regard, and decided he was in love with me (and every other young
woman who came into the restaurant).

We had a bit too much fun in the kitchen, I guess, cuz I ended up just
missing the 9:15pm last bus from Purmamarca to Jujuy. Luckily, with
the help of a $3 peso cab ride, I caught up with it on the highway
where it was stopped for some sort of military inspection.

Goodbyes are strange things. I was unable to read most of the words
Gonzalo wrote in the little brown book I´ve been passing around to
folks I encounter, but even after just one day of shared presence, I
know he is a character I will fondly remember. I am pretty sure from
his accompanying sketch of (presumably) me - with big, bright, shining
eyes – that I also made a lasting impression.

Backdated from Sunday, April 24, 2005 11:51pm-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Bed, Purmamarca, Jujuy, Argentina.

I´m at my ¨hospedaje,¨ which is more like a room with old beds (all
but mine unoccupied, my stuff notwithstanding) attached to the pizza
joint across the street from from Chapanal, which had been recommended
as nice for its $7 pesos price tag by Maxi and Magdala in Iruya and
was closed when I arrived. I´m only paying $5 pesos (less than $2.50
CDN) here, so I can´t really complain that the washroom, outside and
around the back of the restaurant/house, has no toilet paper (or seat
or hot water or mirror or soap or towel, etc.)!

I´m lying here, probably past midnight, reading through the final
section of the ¨Traveller´s Companion¨ Argentina guide that Chad R.
left me in BsAs, noticing mistakes in the English-Argentine glossary,
and fantasizing about starting an NGO or maybe even getting back into
the academia in some interesting, worthwhile, fulfilling area… I must
get Internet access soon and look into possibilities.

My back will be sore from this mattress tomorrow, but I´m hoping that
Jose, my Hospitality Club host in Salta, will have a comfy bed and, if
I´m lucky, a washing machine. I´m in need. Not direly, but my
clothes (especially the ¨poyeras¨ and repaired green pants and light
blue fleece I´ve been living in) could sure use a good wash after
being subjected to all the dust of Jujuy and Salta …

Backdated from Sunday, April 24, 2005 9pm-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Micro stopped in Tilcara, heading from Humahuaca to Purmamarca, Jujuy,
Argentina.

Just kissed off Ari and Natalia. Boo.

But hello to fresh re-beginnings…

Restaurant sign: Pacha Mama. And I recollect that all the food I´ve
been eating of late has probably been organic. Not for morality, but
want of availability or volition to acquire chemical aids, I suppose.
Despite the posters in Iruya linking indigenous ways and histories
with environmental care/concern/stewardship…

And I recall the cattle grazing free in the arid desert mountains.
Not a bad life, all considered. I don´t think my moral grounds for
vegetarianism apply so much here. Then again, I haven´t been
overwhelmed by a huge desire for a thick cut of steak or milanesa or
blood sausage yet. Been… AHH, BUS LIGHTS OUT!

Backdated from Sunday, April 24, 2005 3:45pm (mined from paper journal.)

Seat 12 or 13, bus leaving Iruya headed for Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina.

We left surprisingly on time (3:15pm), given that around 2:30pm the
news had reached us that the bus had broken down on the way into town.
Some poor mother of 2 had tried to come in for the 2 hour gap between
the bus's scheduled arrival and departure, and ended up having to
leave ¨justo cuando llego¨ - weird – Español invading my mind. But in
the current context, I think I´m doing an okay job keeping Spanish
(which I´ve been speaking almost exclusively) and English (which I´ve
been thinking and writing almost exclusively) in good and separate
condition. I´ll have to do something to whip the French back into
shape – maybe a Vipassana course in Quebec when I´m back up north?

Anyways, we´re on our way. Bad break for that woman. I´d have been
pissed. It´s not a short or comfy journey, especially with little
ones in tow.

Cumbia music is playing. Ari hates it. I´d look to see how he´s
doing all alone over in seat 14, but the aisle's full of standing
passengers (for a change!).

Damn, a fly just flew right into my eye! Grr… It interrupted my
thoughts about how permaculture-friendly the (adobe?) ¨brick¨ houses
we keep passing are, and wonder about their construction. It seems,
colour and texture-wise, to be almost the same material as the cliffs
all around us. I also really like the stone corals and walls/ridges
all over the place.

Which of course brings us back to the complicated theme of poverty and
environmental friendliness – like how lifestyles inspired by extreme
necessity seem to complement sustainability, despite the general lack
of environmentalist consciousness (at least as we Northerners know it)
amongst poorer populations (I write this knowing I am risking putting
myself in potentially offensive territory with this whole line of
thinking, and acknowledging that I am painting with a wide stroke).
It definitely can´t be argued, though, that living in a clay-based
structure that doesn´t have an infrastructure that allows for the
wastage of power and resources both costs less and is better for the
environment… All of which calls into question the delicacy of the
utopian desire of some (including myself) to simultaneously reduce
poverty and increase greenness in the world.

Backdated from Sunday, April 24, 2005 10:30am (mined from paper journal.)

Posada Palmira, Iruya, Salta, Argentina.

It´s beautiful here, but cold at night. So much that I bought a $25
peso windbreaker-fleece-lined jacket, replete with rip-off ¨Champion¨
symbol, at the Bolivia-style market, upon arrival Friday evening.

Yesterday we (me, Ariel, Natalia, and a Spanish couple: Magdala and
Maximiliana) walked with Romina, our today-turned-15-year-old guide,
from Iruya to San Isidrio, a neighbouring village about 3 tough
up-and-down hours (climbs at this altitude are killer) there and 3
more interesting back-and-forth-along-the-river (easier but wetter)
hours back

Lunch was a stop into a little home-based artisan co-op/restaurant
where there were literally no vegetarian options, so while the rest of
the group ordered (carne-filled) empanadas, I ran around the corner
with Romina to a house that I was informed doubles as a food
dispensary. I confused them by asking for a sandwich without any form
of meat. They incredulously prepared me a flesh-free, mayo-free
cheese and tomato on white focacia-type bread, and then when I saw
green peppers and offered to purchase one to have some sliced into the
mix, they reluctantly obliged.

Back in Iruya, since I´d found out along the way that she had no
special plans, we took Romina out to celebrate her birthday. Natalia
and I ducked out of the little restaurant to buy birthday candles.
Apparently, from the reactions we encountered as we ran around to
every open kiosk we could find, these are not a particularly hot item
in Iruya. We ended up settling on a pack of larger animal-fat-based
candles, one of which we stuck into a mini-flan someone had given the
sole chef/server working both the kitchen and the tables that night.
This was very lucky, as nothing on the Tina´s official ¨menu¨ - only
distributed in oral form - was remotely cake-like.

It was a good day. Now we are leaving Iruya at 3:15pm, today´s only
scheduled bus, and in Humahuaca will go our separate ways – Ariel and
Natalia back to Inti Tampu to get their car and spend the night before
heading back to Bs As, and me to Purmamarca and then to Salta, as of
now´s plan.

Backdated from Friday, April 22, 2005 12:05pm (mined from paper journal.)

Bus through Iturbe from Humahuaca to Iruya, Jujuy/Salta, Argentina.

I am leaning on Natalia´s shoulder, not so much from fatigue as the
tall boy´s backpack, which has taken up the majority of my headspace.
My leg is stretched over my own bag - ¨por las dudas¨ as Argentines
are fond of saying. Just in case.

A subtle bitter-green flavour saturates my senses as I run my tongue
over the leaf folded between my cheek and my gums. I´ve become
surprisingly accustomed to the taste since Andres, our guide in
Tilcara, strongly recommended that we ¨cocaine¨ ourselves to avoid the
effects of the altitude as we hiked to about 2800m about sea level
into La Garganta de Diablo (the Throat of the Devil) and Las Cuevas de
Waira (the Caves of Waira). When in Jujuy...

This bumpy ride will have us peaking at El Abra de Condor, 4000m, the
border to the province of Salta. I´m grateful to have a seat at all.
Had we left Humauhaca any later, we wouldn´t be so lucky. There are
dozens of standing passengers filling the ailsles, some disembarking
at various points in the three hour journey, while others continue to
get on at random places on the highway.

The treacherous dirt road winds through some of the most diverse and
eye-catching territories in the region. Multicoloured mountains,
cliffs and other curious formations typical of the arid zone erupt
from shrubby meadows liberally peppered with rocks and cacti,
descending into rolling green valleys disected by river beds that
suddenly cut straight down through curvy scenery to hundreds of metres
of vertical drop.

A mother tries to balance her boys, both apparently still under two
years old, in front of her, trying to appease their cries for
attention with jello and orange slices. A slew of school children
boards and takes over any left over breathing room we hadn´t been
fully appreciating. A couple of them look down at the guide book on my
lap and start giggling, whispering loudly. The perception that I don´t
understand is obvious.

I surprise them by striking up a conversation in Spanish, and ask them
if they understand English. They giggle more. I pass them the book…

Backdated from Thursday, April 21, 2005 1am-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Inti Tampu Hospedaje, Tilcara, Jujuy, Argentina.

•p• Andres was waiting for me at the station in Tilcara, as arranged.
For some reason, he was expecting me to be blonder, and Swedish.

We went in his car almost straight to his family´s hospedaje, which he
had somehow failed to mention when he told me he could ¨arrange¨ cheap
accommodations, stopping only briefly at the tourism office, which he
suspiciously seemed not to want me to enter. $15 pesos for a room
with a shared washroom, $25 for a private baño, he quoted me… Fair
enough, but when I mentioned a hostel I´d heard about, thinking I
might prefer the ambience of a youth-filled hospice, he said ¨Malka?¨
and I conceded, to which he responded that it was very expensive, like
$60 pesos/night.

This set off my bulls••t detector, so as soon as I´d unloaded my bags
and made myself an avocado sandwich with the near-last of the
multi-flavoured mini-breads I´d bought in Jujuy, I vetoed the
directions I´d been given to the laguna and marched towards the
centro, and then hiked straight up to the Malka hostel, following the
clearly marked signs I saw soon after turning onto San Martin, one
block over.

The first guy I approached turned out not to be the dueño, but rather
a French tourist, one of a rather large group of francophones with
whom I soon found myself talking and drinking wine. However, I take at
least an hour of immersion when thinking in Español to regain any
level of French fluency, and my ¨frespanglish¨ was creating some
communications challenges with the mainly non-Spanish-speakers, which
combined with the sense of earlier deception to inspire loneliness for
the first time, really, since I´d been on the road.

In hopes of some sort of (homesickness?) remedy, I opted to follow a
single French traveller to a restaurant in the centre where she was
apparently meeting up with a single (French-)Canadian traveller for
dinner at the Sueñadoro(?). There were two other tables of mixed
foreigners and another two with Porteños (i.e., people from Buenos
Aires). In fact, the entire dining population must have been tourists
who came to hear the advertised folk music act, which didn´t end up
coming on until after we´d eaten. I left my e-mail with the
French-Canadian, who said she may have some translation work for me in
the future, and an American at the next table, who wasn´t sure of her
travel plans either.

By the time I got back to Inti Tampu, any thoughts I´d entertained of
moving to the hostel (which, I´d discovered, was charging between $14
and $20 pesos/person, not $60!!) was overshadowed by the awkwardness
of the social situation it would create, the promise of a better
excursion-filled next day, and an overwhelming fatigue.

Backdated from Wednesday, April 20, 2005 5pm-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Northbound on a Cotta Norte bus, Jujuy, Argentina (through Volcan?).

I left San Salvador de Jujuy an hour ago en route to meet Andres in
Tilcara. My window seat (13) was occupied when I boarded, but I can't
really complain on that account (it´s not like I´ve never initiated a
seat change), so I took the aisle (14). That didn´t last long,
though, since one of the many passengers the already slow bus stopped
to pick up was an old woman, who stood unsteadily in the aisle between
me and the man taking up two seats, one with his body and the other
occupied by a large box. The driver came over to check out the
situation, but the man showed his two ticket stubs, proving his
rightful entitlement waste a perfectly good window seat with his
cargo. I, on the other hand, couldn´t justify the señora´s being
made to endure the entire trip on her feet, so I gave up my own seat.
Of course, this meant I had to put up with standing uncomfortably for
over an hour, unable to write or take pictures, until a whole bunch of
people got off just now in Terminal Volcan, thus freeing up seats and
allowing me to finally get out my notebook.

I feel good about leaving Jujuy. It turns out that Jesica, Pamela´s
sister, gave birth last night in San Pedro (?), but the baby was
brought to Jujuy to be put on oxygen in the hospital because there
were complications in the extended labour (or so it was explained to
me).

The scenery has been pretty cool, green and hilly, although getting a
lot more deserty (i.e., great and other colours of rock the region is
famous for and cacti and sparse shrub) as we climb. It´s also getting
chilly – pause to grab fleece from bag – and I´m thinking I should
have put on my long johns. Seems a recurrent bus theme. Anyways,
that kind of change is out of the question now, given I´m only wearing
my short skirt above my repaired Gaia-green-rainbow-back pants, nicely
covering the eternally open fly, and I already felt conspicuous enough
standing up with peering men below. It´s the first time in Argentina
sensing my obvious tourist-ness.

The guy in Jujuy who stapled the pink paper labelled with a 24
surprised me by asking for moneda (change), to which I asked ¨para
que?¨ (¨what for?¨)… When he answered ¨para mi¨ (¨for me¨), which I
still didn´t quite register since no baggage handler to date has ever
asked for a tip, I somewhat reluctantly handed over a 50 centavos, not
sure whether I was being played but knowing either way I wouldn´t miss
a quarter when back in Canada.

Aside: The low clouds up the mountain look neat!!

The whole tipping norm issue is something I should explore further…
I´ve realised that tipping norms, which seem natural when you´re in
one place, are really very arbitrary – like what tasks do or don´t
require or deserve a (voluntary) tip. For example, tipping waiters or
bartenders in Canada or the States is an almost compulsory 10-20%,
whereas in Argentina, that kind of tip is considered obscenely high,
and in some places in Europe (I´ve heard) it is virtually unheard of.
Then, there are all the other customer service agents who do or don´t
expect tips depending on their location, even though their job and
level of expected service is the more or less the same (i.e., taxi
drivers, gas station attendant, retail clerks…). Then you implicate
the unofficial labour force, where there is no primary mandatory
payment (i.e., squeegee kids, door-shutters, car-watchers, etc.), and
it brings in a whole other element.

Backdated from Tuesday, April 19, 2005 11:45pm-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Pamela F's place, San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina.

Just took a series of pics of Jairo (the adopted little brother)
watching TV in the corrugated-metal-roofed two-room house the three
siblings share. Pamela has apparently gone to the hospital to see her
sister – who is giving birth. She was gone when I got back from the
internet café on the corner.

Rewind (1pm-ish): It was a great surprise to have someone meet me at
the bus station – I really wasn't expecting it, and had sorta been
hoping to freshen myself up pre-contact, but when I saw a short-ish
(i.e., my height), young-ish (i.e., a few years my junior) girl,
looking around expectantly, my hopes that she was my Hospitality Club
host perked up and I met her unsure gaze. We cabbed it back here,
where I was introduced to the puppies and welcomed to the humble
amenities (i.e., the outdoor sink and non-auto-flush toilet housed in
a separate brick structure) and told the story of she and her two
siblings' randomly getting kicked out of the more posh house on the
property a few weeks back so that their dad, who is saving up money to
move in with his new wife and her family, could rent it out to his
boss as office space.

Needless to say, this abode is far less developed or 3rd world, so to
speak, than any other I've seen so far in this country, including
those we passed during our walk around the town (oops – city ;) I
keep slipping up on that, after being used to the bigger cities of
Buenos Aires and Rosario) this afternoon, post-siesta (another
novelty, typical of this region). The day heat is pretty impressive
here and I think, even from my limited sun-light exposure (all
post-4pm), my scalp is burned.

Anyways, I've made plans to head to Tilcara tomorrow night to go on an
excursion early Thursday morning with Andres S., another Hospitality
Clubber, who also happens to be a tour guide. He said he can't offer
me a free place to say, but can find me cheap accommodations, which
around here, according to Paula's regional tourism advice, should be
affordable enough.

There are interesting elements to being here, like the bombas de papa
(potato bombs, which are breaded, deep-fried sliced potatoes filled
with cheese and garden-fresh parsley) I got fed for lunch, along with
lemon and a salad, after I found out Pamela hadn't gotten or read the
P.D. in my last e-mail, noting my vegetarianism – and other cultural
observations, etc. – but I think that geographically/energetically I
am ready to move on. Oh yeah, there are also some really good bread
shops (I know, all I need after weeks of near carb overdose, right?)
and apparently decent crafts like wool (llama) and jewellery and clay
(which I won't let myself buy for fear of breakage) around, but I feel
nature calling – not in terms of needing a baño, but wanting to
reconnect.

Backdated from Tuesday, April 19, 2005 10am-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Still on the bus (through Rosario De La Frontera?).

¨Will you watch her?¨ The barely spoken implication as mama heads to
the lower level washroom.

Baby, alone across the aisle, almost immediately starts crying.

I, who during the 15 seconds of calm between these incidents could
think of no action more practical than pulling out my camera to snap a
shot of the cute unattended bundle of joy, am left unsure of what to
do next.

The effects of ¨shh, there, there¨ are intermittent at best.

Whimpers turn to wails. After about a minute, people are poking their
heads out of their seats, straining their eyes to the front of the bus
to lay guilt-tripping stares at the noisy culprit - or, rather, her
tender – me?? A man gestures that I should pick her up. Like, duh...

I am suddenly swept off into an awkward moment of hesitation, likely
the result of years of social-cultural conditioning of the Canadian
variety, which places heavy restrictions on the elsewhere simple act
of grabbing someone else's kid. The amplitude of continues to
increase, as I reason that, in this situation, permission is not a
factor in picking up and consoling the screaming blob across the
aisle. Luckily, at that instant, mama reappears, teet under shirt, to
save the day.

Backdated from Monday, April 18, 2005 22:22pm (mined from paper journal.)

Bus from Rosario, Santa Fe to Jujuy Capital, Argentina.

Another 15 or so hours to go in this bus. At least I've got a double seat...

Composing poetry of sorts in my head quite a bit these days. If it
can be called that. Perhaps travel quips/tips/thoughts would be more
apt. Oh! We're stopping! 30 min. of down (i.e., off the bus) time.
Write some quick:

Be advised in your travels:
many things drip.

Ceilings drip. Walls drip.

Taps not turned off in time drip.

Buckets drip. Bottles drip.

Loads of laundry on the line drip.

Noses drip. Eyes drip.

Shoes that slip on the mossy rocks drip.

Skinned goats drip. Happy groins drip.

Pants that dipped in the river drip.

Umbrellas drip. Birds drip.

Tents that were camped on a slope drip.

Headless hens drip. Crushed pens drip.

Ripe fruits you rip with your teeth drip.

Messy and wet and surprising, the drip.

My tip: don't let a drip ruin your trip.

It´s been too long since I´ve uploaded, so I´m going to try to send
some recent stories to my Updates and then backdate them... Let´s see
if this works!