Snowday

I have to backtrack a little bit, because some stuff happened after I wrote the post last night. I decided to head out to the best parrilla , otherwise known as a steakhouse, according to the locals. En route I passed by the town square, and there was a huge commotion going on behind a tow truck. I thought maybe someone had gotten into an accident (I would not have been surprised, with the way people drive here. I saw a stop sign for the first time in Salta, and I almost took a picture just to prove they exist), but no instead it was a corvette being unloaded off the pickup. Brand-spanking-new. It was the biggest tourist attraction in town. You would have though Michael Schumacher pulled up in his F-1 car, judging by how many cameras were flashing. I guess corvettes are a little rare in this part of the 'hood.

I made it to Viejo Jack's, the locals' favorite steakhouse. Or I thought I did. I kind of drifted past where I thought it was but didn't see any signs. Then a waiter comes out and asks, are you looking for Viejo Jack's? Thinking this could now either be a great place or a very bad place, I walk on in. Prices are reasonable (8$ for what I imagined at that point to be a phenomenal steak) and after deciding it was worth splurging a little bit, I tell him OK and he asks that I find a spot to sit. I start wandering over to a table, and there is someone from the hostel sitting at the window table. She asks if I want to join and I say sure. She's then joined by two more hostel guests. 3 girls and me - I'm diggin' it so far! The two girls that showed up are both American, and had been here for 6 months. That's awesome - what were you up to? Well, we were here studying abroad. No kidding! What program? IFSA-Butler. You can't be serious. So they had just finished the program I'm about to start. Ice broken. The original girl was also studying here, but on her own from Germany. The steaks that showed up a little while later definitely did not disappoint - although I would find out later that Salta is known for undercooking steaks. Medium is more like double rare. It was extremely good nonetheless. So here's the final bill - the biggest steak you've ever seen, a salad and some wine for 11 bucks. You know where to find me if you want in on it.

This morning I had great plans to rent a bike and cruise around the city. Those dreams were shattered when I saw little white stuff floating down out of the sky. Snowing. Any hope of wishing away the winter in July was shot at this point. Bike around? Good plan if I wanted to lose some fingers. So instead I walked to the main plaza and did the tourist thing for a few hours. I visited a museum where they have a mummy found high up a local volcano that's 500+ years old. The girl was 15 when she was sacrificed as part of an Incan ceremony. Seeing the actual mummy, still clothed and veins still visible was honestly kind of disturbing. I didn't know what to think about seeing it and I still don't. All in all though I was glad I did. For lunch I tried locro again, and this time it was much better. The meat was not frozen, and it was much more tasty. Fantastic. I'm going to miss it in BA - apparently it's a local specialty that is extremely rare in BA. As I walked around I noticed more and more cars with new hood ornaments. People here were building snowmen on top of their cars, sometimes covering the entire roof, and then driving around. Personally, I thought that building snowmen on top of cars is like trying to build snowmen over a fire. Cars do warm up, especially the hood, and eventually I was watching mounds of snow with a stick or two sticking out driving around Salta. Pretty funny stuff, but I thought the whole idea of driving around with snowmen on the car to be awesome. If you only get snow once every 10 years, you have to live it up!

Somewhat lost as to what to do with the rest of the afternoon, I talked to the hostel staff and they suggested I head up to San Lorenzo to see the scenery in the snow, since it would have dumped more up there. Great. Go where it's colder. So I wound up going, after flagging down a taxi on the street (I'm really not learning, but it did look the most legitimate with all of it's license stickers) to what turned out to appear to be the Beverly Hills of Salta. Lots of big(ger) houses and newer cars. I don't know if it was something I said, but I don't think I've ever gone slower in a taxi. Even little mopeds with three people on them were passing us. You could have rolled the bottom section of a snowman faster than we were going. When we finally reached San Lorenzo, I walked up into the hills. As I passed a driveway, I saw a couple guys my aged holding a bunch of snowballs and I smiled. I knew what they were up to. As soon as I was out of eyesight a couple snowballs hit the ground right next to me. I turned around, built one of my own and fired it back. I thought about starting a snowball fight with them, but I think I would have destroyed them too quickly for it to have been a fair fight. I eventually got to the much-advertised forest area only to discover it's a private forest area (private? come on now...) and after paying 15 pesos I was off onto a little circuit where I could admire trees and bushes, according to the pamphlet. I had no idea forests had trees and bushes. It was a beautiful area though, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting away from all of the cigarette smoke and car exhaust for a few hours. There was a great viewpoint towards the end of the trail, and I had a very white view of the valley. All in all a great few hours spent. It definitely was the local hotspot to come play in the snow; when I left the forest area half the population of Salta must have been taking pictures and having a snowball fight.

I had the same cab driver on the way back, and we chatted about food, the world cup, when I'll be back in Salta, the local nightlife scene, just about everything under the sun. A great guy- very proud of his city and eager to talk about it. Dinner found me at a local food court-type deal with two other guys from the hostel; one who also had just finished studying (through Middlebury, not Butler) and an Aussie traveling through. We sampled some of the local food (fantastic) and local beer (super - if you ever find the beer called 'Salta,' either cerveza rubia or cerveza negra give it a try). Good stories were shared and a great night was had. I have several new spots I want to hit before I leave South America!