Tinogasta

In Tinogasta, we were welcomed by Monique, the cousin of my dad, her husband Carlos and their three daughters Ambar, Nadia and Yessie, and Tania, a cousin of theirs from New Zealand. Monique and her family own a camping 'Los Olivos' with a swimming pool where many people come by to relax during the day. Tania is visiting them for a couple of weeks. Ariana and I stayed in a 'dormi' on the camping. In total, we stayed for almost six days in Tinogasta. A large part of the time we just relaxed, hung around the swimming pool and the house.

Monique is an English teacher at several schools in Tinogasta. The first evening we talked with some tourism-students of Monique, who had their final exam the day after. Tania was practicing with them, she represented the tourist. During the exam she would also assist Monique by having a conversation with the students. After that we went to a graduation ceremony at the high school where Monique teaches English. It was nice to see how a graduation ceremony in another country is done, although we weren't able to understand everything that was said and done. After the ceremony we had ice cream on the plaza mayor of Tinogasta. We immediately noticed how the daily routine in Argentina differs from the Dutch one; a lot is going on around 12 in the night. Because of the hot weather, people have lunch and siesta from around 1 to 6 pm. Everything will be closed during those hours. After  the siesta people will do things again, until deep in the night. So all shops are open again, even classes can be given in the evening until 12 pm!

​The next day we went on a trip to thermal baths in the neighborhood of Tinogasta. They were located quite some distance outside the city, so we went by car. However, halfway there the car decided to stop working.. We were on a road with the closest house too far to walk and the thermal baths too far to walk too.. We couldn't go anywhere and we couldn't repair the car by ourselves, so we had to wait for someone to pick us up. A friend was called and he said he would come soon. We found out this wasn't a Dutch 'soon', since in two hours no one was there. We called again, and it appeared that the guy who would pick us up hadn't left yet! Since it was a long drive, we had to wait for at least one more hour before someone got to us, and then we had to get home still. I think we were in the car from around 5 pm to 11 pm! A good moment to get to know each other a bit more. Unfortunately, because of this Tania couldn't help in the English exam anymore, which would have been at 8 pm.

The next day was Yessie's birthday. She had been camping with her friends on Los Olivos and there was a barbecue for lunch (lunch is the more important meal in Argentina). In the afternoon, we played a fun card game called Phase 10, where you had to collect specific sets of cards. It took a couple of hours to finish! In the evening, we ate home-made pizza.

Thursday was mostly a day of relaxing. In the evening we met some friends of Ambar on the main square of Tinogasta.  On Friday we went to a field outside the city where a surprise awaited us! Many parts of old ceramic pots can be found there, that were made by the native inhabitants of the area. We found many nice pieces, some had still paint remnants on them and others had nice shapes, colors or engravings.

Saturday was a really amazing day! Ariana, Tania and I went on a day trip to the Andes. We went in a four-wheel-drive to a 4700 m high viewpoint through amazing landscapes. The landscape changed a lot throughout the drive; it started with dry sandy hills with now and then plants, it changed to black and red rocks, then came plains with many yellow plants. It became more and more hilly with snow-capped mountains in the background. We saw fewer yellow plants, the environment became more sand and rocks again. The wind also became stronger and stronger during the trip. The road started as a normal road, it changed to a dirt road and in the end there were just tracks in the sand. At some point we had to give full gas to get up a hill; the car was almost vertical! We didn't make it the first time, so we had to roll back a bit and try again. During the trip, we encountered a lake with flamingos and quite a lot of vicunas. After a couple of hours driving with a lot of stops for photos we rescued the viewpoint! It was really beautiful. To the right we saw a light blue / whitish lake and to the left we saw a black lake. In the middle was a green / blue lake and in the background were around 7 volcanoes. Next to us were some black rocks, lava stones, and around us was the wind. There aren't many places in the world that have a view with so many diverse formations at once! Unfortunately, we had to get back at that moment because the wind was getting to strong.

Saturday evening we tried to get money from the bank, but this is easier said than done in Argentina. Many ATM machines are empty or do not work properly, and often there is only one ATM per city. So we couldn't get any money from the bank, we didn't have any dollars to exchange and in the shops they didn't want to or weren't allowed to let us pay with credit card and give us cash in return. In the end it took us two hours to get some money in a tank station (although we weren't allowed to tell anyone about it). On Sunday we left  Tinogasta and took the bus to Aimogasta, where we waited for the bus to La Rioja from where we took the night bus to wine city Mendoza.