A Brief Overview, and Only a Week Left!

Hello friends! It's been an exciting time since I last told you about my life. I finished school, so I have either been doing nothing, or been travelling. I think it's been a good mix of both of those things. But anyway, as of today, I only have one week left in Argentina! I mean, I guess even less than one week at this point. Wow. Some days, I feel like I've been here for 19,000 years, and other days it's like I got here yesterday and I have learned nothing. Unfortunately, neither of those things are true. Or should it be fortunately? Unknown. But either way, I have almost been here for five whole months, and in general, it has been a good time!!

So for the exciting parts of my past month, I went to Uruguay, and I spent time driving around the provinces of Salta and Jujuy, which are in the northern, desert-y, mountain-y part of Argentina. Uruguay was a nice change of pace from the big city I usually live in, because it is smaller, and also we went to a very tourist town called Punta del Este, which has a beach! Believe it or not, I had to go all the way to another country, and then from that country to another country before I stepped into an ocean. But, the important part of this is that I have now been in the ocean! Wow!!

Also, just so you know, if you're planning on going to Punta del Este, be prepared to spend a lot of money on foods. Because it's a tourist town, they think they can charge ridiculous prices for things. One time, I ordered a meal that was supposed to include two hot dogs and some french fries. And then the hot dogs came without hot dog buns. I was not a fan. And also it was very expensive. Like, bread is the least expensive thing in this country. Why would you take the bread out??? I do not understand. 

Oh, also, in Punta del Este, the main attraction is something called "La mano" which means "The Hand." It's just a giant hand partially buried in the sand on the beach, and it's full of tiny children trying to climb up the fingers, but it is definitely too tall for climbing, unless you are a fiend. Also, mysteriously, they shine a bright green light on it if you go bright and early in the morning. Look at how scary this is:

(Also featuring me, if you look close enough.) But why would they decide to make it green? It's like the buried the Green Giant Bean Man, but they didn't have enough sand to cover the last part of his hand. I am not a fan. 

But anyway, Uruguay was a good time, and I got a lot more stamps in my passport, which is my ultimate goal of being here. Not learning or anything. Just getting passport stamps. 

And then just a few days after that, I went on a cool trip where some people and I basically took a road trip through the mountains of northern Argentina! We started out by flying to Salta, which is the capitol city of the Salta province. We stayed in a hostel for one night, and waited for the last member of our travelling party to arrive. And then we rented a car like cool kids and drove all the way through a bunch of mountains to a pueblo called Cafayate. 

The most exciting thing that we did in Cafayate, probably, was going on a hike through the mountains. But it's not just what you think. We didn't just walk along a nice path through the mountains, like we did when we went Mendoza. Instead, we pulled up in our car, and there was just this guy there. And he was like, "Hello, I am a guide. Would you like me to guide you?" And we were like, 'Mmmmm, I mean, what could go wrong with following this stranger-- who met us at this path unannounced--into the Andes mountains? Really. What could go wrong?" So we went with this guy into the Andes mountains. 

AND THEN. 

We were like, scaling rock walls. And shoving our bodies through crevasses in boulders. And jumping over rivers. And using trees to hoist ourselves in a vertical direction just to see a simple waterfall. There were times when our guide was holding our feet in place so we wouldn't fall. But I mean, that's what study abroad adventures are for, right? It's a good time, and we all survived, and now we'll have a good story to tell all the people who asked us what the scariest thing we did was!

Look! Here we are, all still alive!!

From there, we drove up to the northern-er direction to Cachí. We just stayed there as our stop between Cafayate and Tilcara. The most exciting thing that happened in Cachí was our attempt to become real, live people of Salta, when we tried hojas de coca! Now don't worry. Just because these leaves are the precursor to cocaine does not mean we did drugs. People in Salta and Jujuy uses hojas de coca (which means coca leaves) to combat altitude sickness. (Did I mention that we were in the mountains and at some points it was like 15000ft high? It's fine.) So hojas de coca basically just make your head not hurt, and make you not have motion sickness while driving on curvy mountain roads.

Me, the coolest kid

Isabelle, AKA Isa, the resident Super Food and Long-nosed Dog Expert

Emily, a beautifully indecisive fiend

Will, the most Porteño of all of us

And then we drove up more mountains and finally got to our final destination, Tilcara! We spent two(ish) days there, but actually we did driving to other areas to see the cool geographical features. First we drove way more far away to go to the salt flats! Those were super cool, and we got some interesting pictures.

What are you

Salty handstand/cartwheel

This is an accurate depiction of our frustration during this trip

Devoured

Literally the cutest nerds

So that was a good time, and we had a lot of fun, despite having to once again pay a mysterious guide to guide us along the dangerous pathway that was the fragile salt flats. Also, we wanted to take a lot of pictures and have a good time, but our mysterious guide was impatient. Because of unknown reasons I guess. He probably just wanted to get him money's worth out of us, which means guiding us as fast as possible. 

And the we made our way to a place called The Hill of 14 Colors! That's translated from Spanish, just for you, just for your ease of access. Aren't you glad? Anyway. We got there, and we were vaguely lost for a while, because the road up the mountain was very poorly marked, but in the end, after driving multiple minutes, we found our hill! The view was pretty good from where we were, but THEN some people decided to hike a little ways, which was fine until we had to come back up the hill of death. Literally I stopped five or six times to make sure I hadn't died. Good thing I live in Iowa. 

But I will probably admit that it was worth it, I guess. Because the 14 colors really were spectacular. 

Like, I know pictures don't really count as the real thing, but look at those mountains. Can you see all the colors? I don't know. I didn't count. I should have. That's my one regret in my life: That I didn't count the number of colors in The Hill of 14 Colors. I am a failure. 

So those were the most exciting things that have happened in the past month or so! And now I have only 6-ish days left here to enjoy! I'm excited to go home, but also I think I'll probably really miss my weird life here. Also, I have my last final exam on Friday, the day before I leave to come home, so that's still hanging over my head, and even though it's going to be fine, it still feels like something I have to think about a lot. 

But anyway, I will probably see some of you in person before I write the next blog post, and maybe some of you I will have had to say goodbye to, because you are my Argentina friends, but I hope you've enjoyed reading about my adventures here in and around Argentina! I know I've enjoyed having them, and sharing them with you all. 

Fiends, I will talk to you all later! Good luck out there!!

PS: Foods??

Lol I honestly can't remember if I've eaten anything new, I am a failure.

PSS: Xander was excited for more international travel!!