in the north, sleeping in the desert, in tucuman

Owing to some complaints for the ortography, I will try to develop - but to tell the truth it is really difficult when you get to internet after a few days, loaded with photoes and experiences passed, and I always want to tell you us much as possible of what i am passing, so sorry to everyone who is really maniac about grammar :)

I am in Tucuman, the city where Argentinians declared their indipendence from the Spanish crown on the 9 July 1816.

Actually the revolution started on 25 May 1810 when they had the first government of their own, but this was still loyal to Ferdinand VII, the Spanish king. Obviously they soon discovered that they have no good from being loyal to the spanish, and the criollos (those born in Argentina but with purely European antecedents) did not have so strong fellings of connection with Europe.

The room where they declared the indipendence.

and these are the guys who did all this

Actually, it is really interesting to imagine what was going on here barely 200 years ago. For me it is weird to imagine that a few Europeran countries were literally leading the half of the world, and expliting them to the maximum. We talk about conquista but actually it was the massacre of indigenous people and taking away all their natural resources. When I think of these things I do consider it just that the developed countries should give a LOT of support (every kind) to these regions - because these poor regions owe their poverty in great part to these countries.

Of course, Europe should help. However, it is also shocking to see how everybody thinks that the rubios gringos (blonds) are full with money (plata). We stopped in a little town, Patquia, middle of the desert. We took a cafe here (ay my godm how i miss good coffee!! they do it here more in the Turkish way, when you put hot water on the coffee, so the taste is really different)

The worst is cafe de filtro!!! Like a tea :)

Lets return back to Patquia. We took a coffee and the children, the family and all the animals were there in the bar more or less playing. Obviously they were incredibly sweet and the mother gave me some new bracelets to my collection (over 50!).

The boy took the little sister (morena was her name) on the donkey so I can take some photoes

They were pretending fights all the time.

I gave some presents to the little girl.


Then we wanted to go on. I asked the mother how much the coffee was - she told as much as i wanted to give her. I was thinking if I shoulld start explaining her that for me the prices are more or less on the same level as in Hungary... If you come from Europe, you must be rich. Another thing which is pissing me off sometimes is that all the entrance fees have 3 leves
Argentinians 4 pesos
Latinamericans   8 pesos
Other countroes  30 pesos

DISCRIMINATION!!!!

We are now 4 girls travelling, a German friend of Andrea is coming with us as well, Christina. It is fun to be more people now - obviously all of us are loosers to have boyfriends at home :) All the girls I have met in this travel have boyfriends, while the boys tend to travel without having a love at home. Our Couchsurfing host here in Tucuman told us the French are coming here to fall in love, but their story always ends in a simple way: they visit the beloved women in their own town somewhere in the jungle and then the girls say NO! So they wander around afterwards with a broken heart, the poor...

We went to Talampaya, a park which is under World Heritage protection. It is literally in the middle of the dessert. Talampaya means something with rivers in quechua language - few tousand years ago huge rivers were passing this canon. In the last perion there is a river only for a few hours - this territory recieves less than 100 mm of rain a year.

The park is in the middle of nowhere where only 2 buses pass a day.

 We stayed there for camping, we were the only ones.

 Only one guy stayed at the reception house to watch out at night. It was quite a feeling in the desert at night! We woke up at 4 to catch the bus. Sadly, the stupid man made a mistache about the hour of the bus passing so we missed it. So we did hitchhiking. In the first three hours it seemed extremely funny and interesting. The landscape was spectacular and you could observe all the coulors changing around in the mountains.

The situation started to become desperate when we realised that for some inexplicable reason the people would not stop!! In the middle of the desert where there are no buses! It was the first time I took a nap on the side of a road.

Finally me and Andrea were lucky, a couple with the car completely full took pity on us and made space for us somehow. They were 40, and spent 7 months in an ice cream shop in Germany and than having 5 months vacation. They have been doing this for 20 years. Now the woman was pregnant so they said the would have to decide where to live and that it would be a difficult choice...

There were some animals around :)

Vero and Christina waited till 2 o clock to get picked up!!! (7 hours!!).

With Andrea we kept on hitchhiking.

We were dying of the heat - i felt like having fever. We tarvelled with a wine controller and then with the police. They have road controlls everywhere and the guy there stopped all the camions to ask where they were heading - he was doing the hitchhiking for us :)

We arrived till Catamarca with a camion, whose driver was chewing coca leaves to stay awake (he had been driving for 2 hours) and told us about all the agricultural productions around - there is everything in Argentina, wine, orange, soya, lemon, tabacco etc.

The landscape was gradually changing from desert to greener hills

From Catamarca we took a bus to Tucuman, we were on the road for 20 hours, we needed a rest.

Now we are in Tucuman with some extremely nice girls, Ivana and Mariana.

I love the homes here

There is Christmas coming, in the warm :)