Parque National Ischigualasto and Parque Nacional Talampaya

It was a long day, but I mean that in a good way.  For some reason, the powers-that-be in the tiny town of Valle Fertil schedule buses to leave at 3 a.m. in the morning.  And this being Argenina, where you don´t eat until 10 or 11 p.m., of course there was no question that we would all just stay up until it was time to go to the bus station even though we´d been up since 6:30 a.m.

The desert has been calling to me ever since I was in Jordan last summer, and this just whetted my appetite for more.  I spent the day on an excursion with a bunch of other folks to Parque Nacional Ischigualasto (or Valle de la Luna) and Parque Nacional Talampya. So beautiful!  The two parks are adjacent, separated by a set of cliffs, but look so different in every way. In the summer it can get up to 60 C, but it probably wasn´t even 60F.  Somehow every where I go, locals always say that the weather is abnormal.  Unfortunately, it seems that generally, it´s abnormally cold!

Parque Nacional Ischigualasto

 

  

Parque Nacional Talampaya

It was a lovely and long day.  After the excursions, an Italian musician who is traveling with his panda puppet, a Swiss girl, and an Argentinian girl and I all made pasta and split a bottle of wine, chatting in Spanish and laughing until late.  I guess that´s what happens when you´re in a tiny, tiny town with no place else to go. We were joined by a couple of Argentinian doctors who I had befriended the night before and a French Canadian girl who is biking around the country.  Quite the United Nations!

And to offset the comment by the little girl at the hot springs about my poor Spanish, one of the doctors said that I spoke the best Spanish of any of the Yankees that he´s ever known!

Meeting more Argentinians has been very interesting.  We´ve chatted about everything from racism to Eva Peron.  I´ve been learning a lot about politics here.  Pretty much everyone hates the Kirchners and attributes their elections to widespread corruption.  And their former President Menem, under whom a lot of the ill-looked-upon privitization began, is like Voldemort-- it´s supposed to be bad luck if you even say his name! I´ve also had a number of conversations about how terrible the health care system is in the United States.  Everyone looks at me pityingly and can´t believe that we can be so uncaring as to not have universal health care.  Not much to defend there...