Day 63

Now, look at this! Only two days later! Pretty good, huh? As a side note, is anyone still reading this? I've noticed the comments have disappeared. Well, anyway. I'll write to myself if no one else. Um. So Friday night was Mercedes's birthday as I said.

We showed up half-an-hour late at 9:30, and apologized for our lateness, only to find we were the first people there! Argentines aren't known for their punctuality. But the party was amazingly huge! It was like a wedding! The furniture was all rearranged to create two large spaces inside and out. It surrounded by chairs Mercedes had rented from a birthday service place. On tables were neatly arranged snacks on trays on a fancy tablecloth. And there were people in the kitchen cooking. But more than that--there were waiters who carried snacks on trays! And a huge sound system outside! And a professional videographer! Fifty people came to the birthday. It was gigantic. For a few hours people stood around and talked. I, during this time, went back to the hallway/bedroom area with Adriano (Partly to play with him, but partly to avoid having to greet dozens of people and partly to not be offered food by waiters all night). A few hours after everyone got there, Mercedes gave a little speech about her birthday and blew out the sparkler on her cake. Two and a half hours after the party started, Mercedes's boyfriend Nestor showed up and tricked her into thinking he got her a bag of avocados (To my fellow males, Mom and Maggie have informed me that this is a big no-no boyfriend-wise). A few hours into the party, people, at great urging, began to dance to music. Some people knew how. None of us did. I swayed in the corner while Mom and Dad and Maggie and Chiara danced their hearts out next to me. We danced for a while and played with party whistles and confetti. At two a.m., we were the first to leave. The party didn't end until 5 or 7 (which salteños all seem to manage to say with a straight face)! And while I'm on the topic of birthdays, Chiara's 10th and Francisco's 7th are both coming up while we're here.

We had left early because Sunday morning we left to go to Cachi early in the morning for what the guidebook said was a four-hour-drive each direction. After four hours (and exactly zero minutes!) of sleeping, reading, and looking out the window as the hills rolled by us, we arrived in a village of 4,000 with the first view of snow-capped Andes (As impressive as the Andes are, the snow doesn't compare to what we have all year long [see Day 0].) towering over the valley. It was a beautiful day in Cachi, but we didn't stay long. We first went to the central square for tourist info, then we went to a restaurant and ate really good stuffed peppers and quinoa, and then we went to various vistas around the town and saw views of the beautiful Andes and fields of red peppers drying in the fields. Then we headed back down the stunning drive down valleys and around mountains above a layer of fog toward Salta. We got back around 8.

I had a pretty good day at school today. I'm pretty sure I failed my language test and I have a ton of homework for philosophy, but all in all, it wasn't too bad. We four of us went to an Asian restaurant--our first time since Minnesota--after school, but it was very bad.

In other news, four weeks from today, we leave Salta. It's weird to think this is coming to an end. It's gone by so quickly. Also, Aunt Freda and Uncle Jay and Jack and Max are visiting Salta on Wednesday! Jack, if you're reading this, we already have a girlfriend ready for you. She's only nine, but she'll be ten soon and she knows you're coming and wants to meet you all.