Saturday – September 15, 2007

Saturday – September 15, 2007

We made it to the top!

I slept until we got to our destination (I know that surprises everyone). We got to Tafí del Valle (Tucumán Province) around 9:00 am, and went straight to the mountain that we were going to hike. It’s called Cerro El Pelado, and it was covered to about halfway down with a huge cloud. It was SO cold! That was not a particularly great hike for me – but I felt very accomplished when we made it to the top! It’s about 2,000 meters tall. I have no idea how many feet that is. But it must be a lot.

Then we hiked back down the mountain and ate lunch. We visited Tafí del Valle, which has a lot of cute artisan shops. I bought some more gifts that I can’t WAIT to give out! :-)

Garden at the Museum of the Pachamama

After shopping, we left for Amaicha del Valle – a small town a little further up the mountain. The drive up there was incredibly beautiful! We put our things in rooms in the hostel – I’m staying with Jen and Megan – and then met back downstairs to go to the Museum of the Pachamama. It has a mix of Inca and pre-Inca indigenous cultural artifacts, information about how the valley was formed, precious metals, etc. The museum itself was iffy, but the garden outside was gorgeous. It was made completely of stone and cactus, but with indigenous design mosaics in the sidewalks and on the sides of the buildings and statues of indigenous gods in the cactus beds... It was really incredible. It must have taken absolutely forever.

After the museum, we came back to the hostel and hung out until dinner. I learned how to play Truco, which is a Spanish card game that is extremely complicated where you use signals to tell your partner what cards you have. For example, if you have the 4 of spades, you twitch your lip to the left. It’s very fun! Crazy, but fun. I’m going to bring Truco cards home with me and teach you all how to play.

Then we went to dinner at a little restaurant across the way. After dinner, they turned the lights down and put on music and we all hung out and talked and danced. It was really nice.