Argentina

We're finally in Argentina. Hard to believe, maybe because its only our third day and we are still pretty far north, in Cordoba . This country is huge, to give you an idea its a 36 hour bus ride from the border of Bolivia to Buenos Aires. For this reason we decided to break the trip up and spent our first night in Salta. A bustling, cosmopolitan city termed once again the ¨Valley of Eternal Spring.¨ We happened to run into Albin a kid from the Moonlight Lady Crew at the hostel we were staying at. We exchanged stories and caught up since we last saw each other 7 month ago. Its a small travel circuit when it comes down to it. At the hostel we are currently staying at we met a Finnish guy who had read about Sam and I from the travel blog that Megan, another Moonlight Lady traveler has written. At first glance Argentina is much more expensive then what we've been used to paying. We did come from the cheapest country in South America. We can't afford but to stay in dorm rooms and the bus rides cost upward of $30! (It was the best bus ride we have had.) It's also been a little bit of a culture shock crossing from Bolivia. Argentina is so much more developed and feels much more like a European country, Spain to be exact, rather than a South American country. The people look very European and you don't see the Indigenous as you did in the other countries we've passed through.

The language has been a problem as well. Argentinian accents are crazy and its close to impossible to understand what they are staying. And for some reason, much to our frustration, they have a hard time understanding us. They are also obsessed with their rock music which quite honestly sounds the same and is repetitive. The clubs in Cordoba only play Argentinian rock music or techno making it a very dull night out. Although night life doesn't start till 1 or 2 am and goes till 8 or 9 am. Talk about crazy!

As many of you are aware Argentina is famous for its beef, and justly so. We were in the country all of 20 minutes before we had our first taste when the "continental" breakfast we ordered came with steak and eggs. Later that night Sam went crazy and ordered a huge meat platter and a bottle of delicious wine. And last night we had a big Asado that an Argentinian staying at the hostel cooked up. Of course I had to try the beef since its world famous and even though I still can't go through a steak its the tastiest steak I have ever tried. Sam is in heaven and I keep kidding him that he's going to become a gordito during our time here.

We're going to chill out in the city of Cordoba with its thousands of students and jovenes for a few days and re-group before heading to Buenos Aires then to Patagonia!