Friday, Oct. 3, 2003 - 6:36 p.m.
Bienvenidos a Argentina (Welcome to Argentina)
I got up and packed my things. Mairi & Mhairi had bought bus tickets to Arica, but it didn't leave until that afternoon. I said goodbye to M & M, but before I left Mairi gave me a book to borrow, one she'd been telling me about. It was called "Chasing Che" by Patrick Symmes. Ernesto Che Guevara was a revolutionary who helped Cuba overthrow their government in 1958 and was later killed in Bolivia (1967) trying to inspire the poor to rise to a new revolution that he hoped would spread all throughout Latin America. He is a hero in all of Latin America now. his image is everywhere from graffiti to T-shirts to posters to jewelry. I'd never even heard of him until I arrived in Ecuador. Che and a friend took an extensive motorcycle trip around S.America in 1952 that helped transform Che to become the rebel leader years later. Almost 50 years after the trip, years after the violent death of Che in Bolivia, an American called Patrick Symmes took a motorcycle and followed in Che's footsteps on his journey around S.America.
I was impressed that Mariri let me borrow her book and it demonstrated her faith that we would meet again, either in Argentina or Brazil.
When I went to catch my bus I unexpectedly ran into my Israeli friends again! Efrat, Oshra, Inbar & a few other Israelis were also taking the same bus to Salta. Come to find out they'd stayed in San Pedro the same time as me since there wasn't a bus to San Pedro until now. Liat & Eadit had gone on to Santiago a few days earlier. Soon we were on our bus headed to Argentina. We stopped at the same immigration office that we'd stopped at when we arrived in San Pedro, on the edge of town. Then we continued on our way. This was definately the nicest bus I'd ever been on in S.America. We even got a meal with tea or coffee.
I was sitting next to an Israeli girl who was friends with the other traveling Israelis. She never spoke a word to me on our entire journey. I started chatting with the couple across the aisle. They were from New Zealand, nice people. After about an hour we arrived at the Argentinian immigratin office.
The uneventful bus ride was about 13 hours long. Hours after entering Argentina it grew dark and later I noticed a flash of brilliant lightening in the distance. I wasn't tired, I didn't sleep. I just watched the spectacular lightening show flash in the sky every 10 seconds. As we approached Salta it started to rain. I didn't look forward to our arrival and dealing with the downpour. I'd decided to just go with the Israelis, whatever lodging they picked, although I did notice in my guidebook there was a youth hostal near the center of town that sounded cool.
It had recently stopped raining when we finally arrived in Salta. The Israelis had chosen one hostal that had a guy from there who offered us a ride. The 8 of us all loaded up in the pick up truck of the hostel guy, and the rest were in a taxi. I ended up sitting in the back of the pick up truck (which was wet). There was some confusion as we unloaded our stuff, went inside and the Israelis didn't have Argentinian pesos to pay for the taxi and we were trying to figure out our lodging situation and the guy there was talking to us and we learned there wasn't enough space for all of us. The hotel guy said he had an apartment that some of us could stay at.
During the confusion, I looked at the clock on the wall and it said it was 2:30AM. I looked at my watch which said 1:30AM. I asked the hotel guy if the clock was correct and he said yes. So I realized we had entered a different time zone.
Then Efrat suggested I go with 3 other Israeli girls to the apartment. It didn't really matter to me, I figured it was temporary anyways. So the hotel guy took me and the Israeli girls I didn't know (one of them was the girl I'd sat next to on the bus) and our stuff and drove us about 4 blocks away to this apartment. It was above a beauty salon, it belonged to the hotel guy & his family. We carried our stuff upstairs and found a small 2 bedroom apartment with a little bathroom. Each room had 2 beds, one was a little smaller than the other. The girls immediately turned on the TV and started watching it.
The Israeli girls never talked to me unless I asked them a question. When I asked about sleeping arrangements they said they were going to move one of the beds into the larger room so the three of them could be together. "Oh, OK. Whatever", I thought. So I went into the smaller room and put my bag on one of the beds. Then the girls took the mattress from the other bed and moved it out into the larger room.
We all were hungry, so before the hotel guy left he offered to get some take out food for us. He came back with hamburgers and sodas and the girls sat on the matress on the floor and we all ate our food and watched an episode of "Friends" on TV. It was the only time I hung out with them. We didn't talk to each other, just watched the show.
They kept to themselves and I to myself. They spoke Hebrew the entire time unless answering me when I asked them a question. I was feeling pretty unwelcome, but I tried not to take it personally. The two bedrooms didn't have a door between them. They kept the TV on late into the night while I tried to fall asleep. It was after 4AM.
