3 excursions in Salta: the people

For the past three days, I have been sitting in cars for 10-12 hours at a time, being shown the natural wonders of Salta province. I had a lot of concern about this going into this stage of the trip, but it turned out to be OK. The excursions were not in a big bus, or even a mini van, but rather an SUV with either 3 or 4 passengers and one guide. The intimacy was nice and the conversation and people were interesting.
The first trip, I found myself headed to Cachi with two Italians from Vincenza, one is a roofer (Mirco) and the other (Ivano) works for the railway. They were on a four month trek through Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, just starting it. And the guide, Carina, was a total trip. I can truly say that I have never had a tour guide quite like her and I doubt I ever will. Her version of tourism involves informing the tourist of many of the pressing the social problems in the region we were driving through. These included inbreeding, incest, violence against women, and poor education. ALso included were complaints about porteños and chileans. All this while driving through some truly spectacular scenery: an odd juxtaposition. We closed the trip with some recipe sharing to lighten up the conversation a bit. It was great...especially for me, since the entire discussion was in spanish.
Trip two: Mostly in English, which was great for my headache. I don{t know that I would have had the stamina to ride through 12 hours of Spanish a second day. I found myself with Noe, the guide, who though he was a neighbor of Carina, does not have quite the same social conscience or set of opinions, two french women, a mother (Laura) and her 15 yr old daughter (Julia), who made quite a pair, and then a 22 yr old russian (Gleb) who had just finished a second degree in Economics at Gottingen in Germany, and was about to start a job with Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt as an investment banker.

Conversation was lively, but dont ask me what it was about...until we dropped off the frenchwomen. At that point Gleb and I started, somehow, a conversation about relativism (in the philosophical sense). Gleb, being a 22 year old economist, was, of course, a relativist. Efforts to persuade him that relativsim was bunk by appeal to the objectively spetacular scenery were for naught. Noe admitted that he had never had quite this sort of conversation in his car before. Poor guy.




Today, the last trip: Two women, a crazy porteña (Velia)who would not stop talking, a dignified 75 yr old woman, who turns out to be an argentinian naturalised Canadian living in Montreal (Ines): they are cousins; and a very cold chilean man (Fredi) who didnt want to talk or look at the vistas, or really do much of anything but hog the front seat. The poor guide...she dropped me off last, and I expressed sympathy for her, which she said she very much appreciated. I didnt get names, alas. But Ines has had an incredible life...her husband was a Canadian diplomat, a trade commissioner, they met in Lima, and lived in Sydney, Jamaica, Spain, Italy, London, Buenos Aires, Atlanta, and no doubt some other places I am not remembering. Landing, eventually, in Montreal. I saw a picture of her 99 yr old mother, who doesnt look a day over 85.

Update: Today (Dec 15) wandering around Salta, I ran into Mirco, Ivano, Velia and Ines sitting having coffee. It turns out in the middle day, those four had been on a tour together....Its a small town...I joined them, and we spent a great couple of hours chatting over coffee...All of us leave Salta in different directions today.