Sounds Good on Paper

Category: Salta

  • Eating an Entire cow (not in one sitting) part 6

    Our guidebooks talk about all kinds of scams that can happen in Argentina.  Cab drivers give out counterfeit bills, thieves wait at ATM machines,  pick pockets throw mustard on your shoe.  So far none of these things have come even close to happening.

    The only scam so far, has been the old “this matambre steak is cow shoulder,” trick.

    The restaurant looks innocent enough, but since they don’t have a menu,  the waitress just told us what they were serving that day — matambre. When we asked what part of the cow that was, she said pointed to her shoulder.

    Several things could have happened:

    1. it really was shoulder, but she just called it matambre
    2. it was flank steak which she thought came from the shoulder of a cow.
    3. she had a sore shoulder and was massaging it while taking our order.
    4. she was trying to trick me.

    Now that I think about it, I’m not sure cows even have shoulders.      Later when I googled matambre I got this.

    Matambre is a beef dish from Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Of an Italian style, it is a rolled flank steak filled with vegetables, eggs and herbs that is then boiled or oven-roasted. (from Wikipedia).

    So obviously, she tricked me into eating flank steak.  The confusing thing is, there was no roll, vegetables, eggs or herbs. It was just a slab of meat. And, the other weird thing is it was super light, almost white.   After much time on the internet comparing my photo to other photos of matambre, I’m pretty sure it was flank steak. You can’t really mind eating a flank steak twice.

    doesn't this look more like a shoulder than a flank?

    Although, I’ve had a lot of flank steak both on this trip and in Seattle and it’s never looked like this.  But, it was super good, so no matter what it is, I see lots of matambre in my future.

    Notice how I had to edit out me saying “this is cow shoulder.”

  • Brew at Home Coffee crisis

    When my Spanish teacher asked me what we did this past weekend I answered,   “Nosotros buscamos cafe en los supermarcados.”  Surely she misunderstood. We didn’t search for supermarket coffee ALL weekend, did we?

    Well….um…yeah….kind of.

    Jeff and I love to make coffee at home. We like going out for coffee too, but we need that first cup at home to wake up enough to go out to get more.   When we moved into this apartment in Salta the first thing we did was buy a coffee maker. The second thing we did was buy the 100% Arabica coffee beans.

    When we went back to the store 3 days later for more, the store was out — of all Arabica beans.   Now hardcore travelers would just switch to robusto or instant. Hardcore travelers wouldn’t even be drinking coffee, they’d be drinking yerba mate out of gourds.  But, we’re not hardcore.

    Part of traveling is adapting. We’ve adapted to a different language, customs, weather, foods, and scenery.   But for some reason, we just can’t do it with the coffee.   We need good beans that we can brew at home.

    We actually did try several emergency options.  We found an ancient jar of instant in the cabinet.

    We tried robusto beans.

    And then we pretty much freaked out. We were dead set on finding those beans. It put us on a 2 day, 4 mile, 5 supermarcado  brew at home odyssey to all the supermarcdos in Salta.

    stop #1

    Finally, at the last of the big supermarkets, we found them –  Arabica beans without sugar or cardamon added.   Was it worth it? (I’m taking a sip of coffee as I type) Yes.

    We can go without peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies, Pop Chips, The Daily Show, Washington wine, cottage cheese, Kinetix bars, margaritas, Chinese food, all our family, all our friends, my income and the entire English lanugage, but 100% Arabica beans to brew at home? No way.

  • Staying in Salta

    I’m relieved and happy to report that we really love the city of Salta and plan to stay for awhile. After dragging all our suitcases onto the wrong bus to Salta, I really don’t want to go anywhere else for awhile.

    Here is my top ten list of what I love about Salta:

    1. Beautiful City – there are colonial buildings, parks with palm trees and mountains in the distance.

    2. Amazing apartment – I’m sure hardcore travelers/expats can live anywhere, but we’re not hardcore.  We need a nice place with the internet, a couch, and big bed.   We got so lucky with the apartment we’re renting. It has all those things and an amazing deck with a jacuzzi.

    view from our apartment

    3. Nice people – the people here are super friendly and patient with my lack of Spanish.   The cheek kiss is popular. I find myself cheek kissing 2-3 people a day. (not including Jeff).

    4. Small city feel. There are 500,000 people here, but horse drawn carts still go down our street. This one unfortunately had a megaphone.

    5. Empanadas (and other delicious foods)

    Humita – tamale-like corn dish

    6. Good cycling for Jeff -Jeff’s found a great group of guys to ride with.

    7. Yerba Mate – we see the gourds everywhere and bags of it sold at the grocery stores. I bought some in tea bags to start.  Tastes good but leaves a nasty green ring in the cup.

    8. Interesting cultural stuff – honestly, we haven’t done anything cultural yet.  But here’s a guy just hanging out in a full gaucho outfit talking to someone on a bike.  I’m sure he’s dressed up for a tourist activity, but you have to love the pants.

    9. Wine – The town of Salta is in the province of Salta which is known for high altitude wine.  So far all the wine we’ve tried from this area has been good.  We’re hoping to do some trips out to the vineyards soon.

    10. Three alfajores for a peso –  How can you not love a town where the bakery down the street sells 3 alfajores (two shortbread cookies with dulce de leche in between) for a peso, the equivalent of a quarter.  And, the nice older couple that own the store talk to me in Spanish every time I go in.

    What I don’t like about Salta:

    1. Rain – turns out January and February are the rainy season.  Seems like we left Seattle’s rainy winter to go to Salta’s rainy summer.  Ironic isn’t it?

    2. Lack of Veggie Variety – this idea of eating what’s local is great until you actually are in a place where you can only get local vegetables.  I dream of  a produce aisle filled with vegetables shipped in from all over the world, carbon footprint be damned.

    3. Lack of good coffee – there are lots of places to go out and get good coffee, very hard to buy good beans in the grocery stores.  Instant and robusto beans yes, Arabica not so much.

    Luckily, the dislike list is short, and who knows, dislike #3 might just get us to switch to yerba mate full time.

  • Cycling in Salta!

    The Journey

    Coming to Argentina with my bike was a gamble. Were there going to be roads that would be well paved? Could I get out of the city on the bike safely? Would the bike make it to our (semi) final destination?

    Turns out the answer to those three questions was yes! I packed my bike in a specially design bike carrying case (plastic shell with small luggage-style-wheels for rolling it) and checked it on the plane. Got it onto the plane, off the plane, into a taxi, to Buenos Aires, back into a taxi, back onto a plane and into another taxi (actually it took two taxis that time!) to Córdoba and onto a bus to Salta, a city up North. That’s about 7600 miles in total.

    Jeff's Iron Case travel bag

    I searched “ciclismo Salta” on Google and got a contact email address and from there was able to arrange a ride with some local cyclists. I rode out to the meeting point, thinking I would likely see only a few riders, but was surprised to see about thirty cyclists with modern race bikes, riders varying in age from 15 to about 60.

    I could tell this would be a fun group to ride with in that there was a lot of excited chatter, joking, and thankfully, interest in what I was doing there, where I was from, and–as will happen with any group of cyclist–questions about my bike.

    Taking a Coke break

    Turns out they ride just about daily and are a rather experienced, fit bunch of riders.  Some have been riding for over twenty years. I chatted with most of them during our 50 mile ride, one of them put his hand on my shoulder as we rode handlebar-to-handlebar up a long climb.

    At the end of the ride someone asked if I wanted to stop for a Coke with them. The American equivalent of this would be either all stopping at Starbucks for a coffee or perhaps at a gas station where everyone would buy a can of pop etc. Here in Salta it meant sitting down in a shaded area in town where two riders could run to buy several 2 liter Cokes to fill everyone’s cycling water bottles. Being the day after New Year’s we toasted with our Coke filled bottles making sure to “clink” every single bottle in the group. Again lots of chatter and smiles, and also more interest in me and my journey.

    Cycling in Salta

    I’ve ridden with these guys several times since, and am looking forward to many more rides and routes.

    For anyone coming to Salta you can see two of my rides on the website “Map My Ride”

    http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/26782092

    http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/26781386

  • Cordoba to Salta bus ride – my neurotic personality fails me

    If we were on the show Amazing Race we would have been eliminated for sure.  We were taking an overnight bus from the town of Cordoba to Salta.  Usually my complete neurotic personality, while annoying, keeps us on track. This time it completely failed us.

    We had flown from Buenos Aires to Cordoba.  After a few days in Cordoba we were headed for the town of Salta.

    I’m the first to admit we have way too much luggage.

    But, when we bought tour first class overnight bus ticket we were assured there was more than enough room for all our luggage.  I even insisted we bring the above photos to show them when we bought the tickets.  The ticket seller said it was fine.

    Our bus left at 8:15pm.  I insisted we leave our apt at 6:30.   No way were we missing this bus. Jeff protested, but after some serious marriage negotiation we got to the bus station at 7:00p.m.   We stood at the bus terminal and watched as buses headed to all parts of Argentina came and went. I strode up and down the terminal monitoring each bus. There was no way a bus could come into the station without my knowledge.  Jeff thought I was overdoing it, if the bus pulled in surely we’d see it.  I  agreed, but nervous energy kept me pacing up and down.

    At 7:45 a bus with the words Salta plastered to the front of it rolled into the terminal. Jeff and I wrangled all 5 pieces of luggage to the bus.   The driver didn’t want to take Jeff’s bike suitcase.  He had to pay “a little extra” to get the driver to accept it.    Finally, the bike and our huge suitcases got loaded in. It was a relief to see them safely on the bus and the luggage compartment door shut.

    Then we handed our boarding ticket to the driver who informed us we had the wrong bus. This was the 8:30 bus. Oh, and what do you know, our 8:15 bus had already left.  It seemed impossible. I had memorized ever bus and where it was gong. There was no way  a bus for Salta had pulled in without my knowledge.  What’s the point of being neurotic, nervous and checking and double checking if you still miss the correct bus?

    Our luggage was on the 8:30 bus, but we were not.  We waved goodbye as everything we currently owned drove off to Salta without us.

    The next bus we could get on was at 10:30. It cost extra to change the ticket for a lower class of service. As we sat in the station the same thought went through both of our heads, “I just want to go home. I’m too old for this sh*t.”

    But then we got on the bus, got served a tray of different kinds of ham sandwiches: rolled ham sandwich, thin ham sandwich, regular ham sandwich. We watched a Jennifer Anniston movie, reclined our chairs and went to sleep.

    The next morning we arrived in Salta and our luggage was waiting, untouched at the bus office. It only cost a “little extra” to get it.

    So what seemed like a potential disaster worked out fine in the end. The travel gods were watching over us yet again.