We chose the restaurant Monumental for our next beef adventure. We chose it for several reasons: it’s near our apartment, has outdoor seating, looks like a castle.
I had planned to eat mollejas (sweat breads also known as glands) but the waiter was completely freaked out that I was ordering only sweatbreads for dinner. He didn’t think this was an appropriate dinner. I didn’t either, but assumed they’d be inedible and I’d be going out for dinner #2 at McDonalds afterward.
He suggested corazon which is beef heart. I was little apprehensive so we also ordered lots of wine, a “ensalada Americana,” a backup pork chop and I made sure Jeff was ordering a big enough steak that I could mooch off him if needed.
The heart really wasn’t that bad. It sort of tasted like a weird cut of steak. Now the salad, on the other hand, was totally weird. Lots of corn and white stuff which was either the worst cheese in the world, or a strange vegetable.
My favorite part of dinner was observing the family next to us. It was past 11:30pm and an entire family including a baby, toddler, and nanny were enjoying dinner. At around 12:30am we had to go home, we were yawning, but the family was still on dessert.
You would think going to the gym would be sort of the same everywhere you go. Sure, far off exotic lands don’t even have gyms, but you would think any place that has a gym that you can join as a tourist must be about the same. But, there are some things at my gym that are different.
The first thing is the name. I just don’t think a gym in the US would be called XX anything.
The second thing that is different is that in the US, I don’t kiss anyone at the gym. Here, there is a lot of kissing. First chance to kiss is when you enter. You go and check in at the front desk. The woman behind the desk always greets me with a very welcoming “Hola Sherillllll.” Some people lean over and kiss her, but I opt out.
Then I sort of stall while I wait for Maximo to come over. Maximo is the “on duty” gym trainer. He’s a really sweet, very ripped Argentinian that doesn’t speak any English. He comes over, kisses me on the cheek, gives me a half hug then asks me how I am. I always say fine. I then forget how to ask him how he is, so I just sort of nod. Then he asks if I’m “tranquila.” I always say yes which is a lie. I’m never ever calm because I’m always trying to remember the Spanish words for things and who and when I should kiss.
There’s only one elliptical trainer at the gym, and no one but me ever uses it. It may be an antique. I feel like if I ever got my heart rate up to 150 on it the entire thing would collapse.
Another thing that is different, there is a picture of Jesus in the corner.
In between helping people, Maximo drinks yerba mate from a gourd. If I am doing something really incorrectly he helps me with my form, usually in a series of complicated pantomimes and grunts and nods from me.
The first time I worked out I thought Maximo had the best job ever. All the women at the gym come in and kiss and hug him. All the men shake his hand, ever single of of them.
By the end of my first workout I realized the down side to Maximo’s job. He also has to kiss every woman goodbye at the end, or shake every man’s sweaty hand.
I try to wipe my face off as much as possible at the end of each workout, but I can tell you there have been times when the poor guy has had to cheek kiss me while I was dripping sweat.
If I’m unusually sweaty, I wait until I see him busy helping someone, I run to the middle of the gym shout, “Ciao” then bolt out before anyone can kiss me. I’m sure it’s considered completely rude, but that is the good thing about being a foreigner. No one expects you to do it completely right every time.
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.
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.
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”
We chose the restaurant Monumental for our next beef adventure. We chose it for several reasons: it’s near our apartment, has outdoor seating, looks like a castle.
The heart really wasn’t that bad. It sort of tasted like a weird cut of steak. Now the salad, on the other hand, was totally weird. Lots of corn and white stuff which was either the worst cheese in the world, or a strange vegetable.
