Tenemos que ganar...

Soccer here is life-period.  Anywhere you go, anything you do, there’s always an influence in some way from soccer.  In fact, the mayor of Buenos Aires used to be the president of one of the largest teams in Buenos Aires…

A friend of ours invited us to a River game and this is what ensued:

The crowd was hurriedly rushing towards the stadium singing and chanting, the last of the ticket scalpers were calling out prices, the smoke from the grilled chorizo sausage was tempting everyone’s appetite and city buses roared in at about three times capacity, River fans seeping from every corner singing, chanting and dancing.  As we walked up to the stadium there was a thick cloud of red smoke all throughout the streets from smoke bombs being set off one after another (the River colors are red and white).  We make it to the first checkpoint-we are sent into different lines for men and women and receive the first pat down.  This is the step everyone chugs the last of the beer and the ambiguous liquid in water bottles –no food or drink allowed in the stadium. 

At this point we are running- we run around the stadium, under a bridge, through an area that appears to be blocked off and into a line of 200 people smushed into a space that holds about 50.  On either side of the line are metal bars that look like they are going to topple at any minute.  Police are positioned on either side of the metal bars as to keep us contained.  As you can imagine, this line is also singing, chanting and jumping-there’s also a lot of “Dale” resounding from the crowd-something loosely translated to “hurry up, come on and what the hell” all in one word.  After a good 10-15 minutes of shoving we make it to the front where we are again separated into groups for men and women for a second pat down.  Directly following this pat down is another-but now we are actually entering into the outside of the stadium. 

We go to the first line of ticket takers-it doesn’t appear as though it’s moving and the front of the line has incited a bit of a scuffle with the riot police - we move on to the next line.  Here again we are singing, chanting for River and screaming our “dale’s” to get the line to go faster.  We, once again, are separated between men and women.  Silvia’s ticket doesn’t seem to be going through the machine in front of me, so the ticket person takes mine and asks us just to go through the turn style together…sure-why not?  We get in and are looking all around for the guys-we can’t seem to find them anywhere, they must have not made it in yet. We run up the first set of stairs to see the crowd below, it appears as though the whole crowd has rushed the ticket takers and everyone is jumping the entrance and bombarding through-the police look as though they have reacted and a fight has broken out.  We don’t spot the redhead anywhere so figure John has made it in-we’ll go up to the top and wait because standing in one spot here on the stairs is sure to get us trampled. 

There’s no sign of John or the rest of the group-maybe they got in through another entrance?  None the less, the game is starting and we need to follow the crowd in.  We are pushed through what feels like a sausage casing-straight up through the crowd, can’t see anything, have no control of where your body goes or how it’s moving…you just keep moving up.  We make it to a place where we can stand and see the game-somehow we’ve lost another of the girls and it’s down to Silvia and I-oh well, the game’s starting and we have to join in on the chanting-maybe we’ll find them later.  I try to text John but signals out, too many people in one place trying to use phones. 

We are standing, screaming, cursing, smoking (everyone around us that is), jumping, dancing, and singing.  Sitting here is unimaginable as is eating or drinking.  Our next three hours are nothing but insanity-learning the songs, jumping, screaming, throwing old newspapers… 

The stadium is cut into four sections, North and South and East and West.  Each section is physically separate from the other sections-that’s to say, the entrances are different and there is actually a physical gap between the two of probably 100 feet-there’s no way of crossing into the others.  In between each N, S, etc.  There are 50 foot metal fences to keep the fans contained between the sections themselves…riot control. 

As the game ends and River loses (a monumental loss in fact) the whole stadium (less the South) sits down.  I am beyond myself as to why we are all sitting down…the game is over, we haven’t sat down for the last three hours?  Evidently the opposing team fans are escorted out by the police first.  Once they have a good half hour lead, they start letting us out.  As we leave there are undoubtedly fights, people still yelling and cursing and of course singing.  They have a song for “that’s okay, we lost but we still love you-we’ll come back next week to watch you play again…but you are an idiot and shape up.” 

Back on the street the food vendors are packed and everyone wants a hamburger or a chorizo sandwich.  The buses fill up and we keep walking back to the subway.  Of course because 60,000 people all at once are leaving a stadium there’s bound to be a subway full of River fans…and there were-the chanting, singing and jumping continued into the subway cars.  Oh, don’t mind us, we’re just River fans and soccer is life. 

Salta, La Linda

Well, it´s been a long time since I´ve written.  It’s always in the back of my mind, but I seem to never get around to it.  This time I´m going to write so much and post so many pictures that I think it´ll help make up for some I´ve missed J

My dad, Harrison and Karen recently came down to visit us and we took a trip to the Northwest of Argentina, most specifically to the town and region of Salta.

Before going to Salta I read lots of blogs and used tripadvisor quite a bit, read guidebooks, etc.  I was excited and thought it´d be pretty but I really had no idea HOW pretty it would be.

Unfortunately, about 3 months ago a volcano erupted in Chile that was right on the border of Argentina.  It spewed ashes into the air and has caused serious trouble for air travel in Argentina because basically the whole country is covered in ash clouds.  We sadly lost a day of travel because of cancelled flights due to ash, but luckily it was only one day-for many travelers it´s been way more of a headache!   



On our first day in Salta we walked around the town a little (the picture to the left is one of the emblematic churches in Salta).  We decided that day to rent a car. For us this was a really tough decision because we thought maybe the roads would be impossible, we´d be nickel and dimed at the rental agencies, etc etc. For us, it worked out SO smooth and just like a dream.

Having the freedom of our own care was invaluable. We were able to stop when we wanted (which happened to be every 5 minutes to take pictures), be on our own schedule, and were able to see things and places that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see.

I´m going to be throwing in names of towns, etc. that won’t mean much…but say them all the same.  The drive from Salta to Purmamarca is winding, and by far the hardest roads we encountered, it´s very small and very winding but beautiful. I expected Salta to all be red clay and rock, and this was going through the lush green forest!!  At one point we got out of the car and Harrison and I stood fingertip to fingertip and spanned the WHOLE road!

We were the only ones on the road, I think we only passed two cars the whole drive!

 

Mountain of seven colors



We stayed the second night in Purmamarca which is a small little pueblo with probably 500 inhabitants. We stayed at a hotel that had a room on the second floor with a view of a  mountain called the mountain of 7 colors.  We got up early enough to watch the sun come over the mountain, every 5 minutes or so a little more of the mountain was exposed and was illuminated like nothing I’ve ever seen before- really really spectacular.  After watching the sun rise we went to the local market and "ood and ahhd" over all the local artisan goods.





  





That day we went to the Salinas Grandes which are huge salt flats.  Evidently at some point long ago there was a salt body of water that has since dried up.  It basically looks like a huge desert of salt-it´s also really interesting because depth perception is way off and if you run only 100 feet away you look really tiny!


The thin strip of white is us coming up on the salt flats

The next day’s plan was to go to a place called Cafayate-Well, we didn’t make it to Cafayate because the drive was much longer than expected but it didn’t matter, we ended up staying in a little town called Cachi, which was really nice and charming.  Right outside of Cachi we drove through “National Cactus Park”.   The park was UNREAL, if you were to turn your head in a 180 degree perspective you would see anything from flat, grasslands to red mountains, to snowcapped mountains, to cacti…it´s hands down one of the prettiest things I´ve ever seen.

We stayed in Cachi that night-rented a cabin, cooked out on the grill, and went back to Salta the following day.

I´m attaching a few more random photos here below. Also, to give credit, all the pictures are taken by John.  He recently got a new camera and has become quite the photographer, he has some really nice shots and I think is really developing an eye for photography!