It was very big and very beautiful!
We watched this guy jump off the bridge:
Bungee jumping!
Our guide told us that swimming is illegal in the reservoir because there is too much fishing junk left from fisherman- hooks, lines etc. Apparently, two guys, back in the 70's or something jumped off the bridge, and one never came up. They searched and searched, and 15 years later (or so) found his body tangled and trapped in hundreds of fishing lines, arms outstretched, trying to get free. I know that's so MORBID, but was definitely one of the stories that completely captivated me. I always go to the "weird and bizarre" news pages from CNN and Fox, and like that kinda stuff.
Anyway, the guy jumping off the bridge in this picture wasn't heavy enough to even touch the water, so no danger for him. I got to thinking though, that if you were heavier, and you did go under water, head first, your eye could get snagged on a hook, and then the bungee cord would rip you back up out of the water, and how awful that would be. Maybe it's because I'm an Eye-Doctor's kid, but I have ALWAYS had paranoia about my eyes. I can go into the grocery store, or Westlakes and if the hardware holding stuff on the aisles is sticking out at all, or if the aisle is anywhere smaller than what feels comfortable, you will see me with my hands near my face, just IN CASE I trip and fall into the sides. I am SO psyched out about my eyes being gouged out!
It would be absolutely beautiful in the summer time! There were lots of really nice houses with private marinas and country-club-style lodges.
Near the visitor center/lodge, there was a CUTE little dog running around! And a cat:
Haha!
The next day, we did a city tour of Salta,
This door was built in the 1500's... it was on a Catholic church.
We Stopped at several statues:
I was experimenting with a filter... it turned out weird, but whatever.
We stopped at this quaint little cafe' on the outskirts of town, and had Coffee:
The sun was setting, and the mountains were already shrouded in mist... the setting reminded me a little bit of Appalachia or something.
The day before we left Salta, Paul and I wandered into a Catholic Church: it was really beautiful! I've only ever been in one two other times... the Sacraments and statues and paintings are beautiful. Paul and I both commented that we could see the reason why people like the traditions. It offers some semblance of divine order and structure to the chaos, that people so desperately need. Unfortunately, RELIGION will never be able to supply the Peace that Christ (reigning in hearts) can satisfy to the fullest.
Front of the Church:
Back (where we came in)
So, then on Saturday at noon, we got back on our bus for Buenos Aires. The trip back took 22 hours. I took some pictures, but due to the nature, won't post them, probably.
I'll explain:
Paul and I got the VERY front of the bus on the way back to BAs, with HUGE wrap around windows that allowed us to see the ENTIRE roadway. It was cool.
At one point, we were traveling out in the middle of nowhere, with one-lane traffic in either direction. Paul got my attention when said, "Whoa! What was that?!" I looked up and saw a cloud of dust on the left side of the road, some distance off. As the bus came closer, and quickly slowed down to stop, we were the first on the scene of a very HORRIBLE HORRIBLE wreck. I freaked out and my heart started hammering in my chest. There were objects strewn all over the road, and as we were approaching before stopping, I thought they might be body parts, and I covered my eyes and told Paul I couldn't look- he said, "No it's not body parts" and so I kept looking. To my left, a MANGLED pile of metal was twisted into a car. It was hard to actually identify the car, because it was so smashed together. There were skid marks careening off the road. The car was slowly getting on fire, and I had this scream in my throat that someone needed to get over there and GET THEM OUT! I could see no one on the side of the road, looking like they had gotten out of that vehicle, and no one was running over to the car and metal (and smoke...) to pull them out. I debated about running out of the bus (we were going nowhere) and just making sure there was no one inside... I thought I'd probably get in big trouble, so I just bit my lip. There were no emergency crews there yet, but as I took in the scene, and Paul and I tried to analyze what happened, here is what we came up with: In addition to the vehicle that was a mangled pile of metal, there was a gigantic trailer that was ON IT'S SIDE with it's load of potatoes scattered all over the road (not body parts, thank GOD!), and an entire set of it's wheels were gone (part of the pile of twisted metal). It appeared that the potato-truck, with a DOUBLE load (in other words, two trailer fulls) was traveling Eastbound, when it's back load came unhitched and swung around into the oncoming lane, catching a vehicle, and tearing the trailers' wheels off, spilling the potato trailer onto the road, and tipping it on the side, and the wheels and car mess careening off the road. Onlookers from the surrounding farms began running to the scene, and we all watched as the car mess burst into flames. It caught on fire completely, and flames burned about 15 feet in the air, with BLACK smoke pouring out all around. The grass began to catch on fire, and the area was rapidly burning up, when within 5 minutes an ambulance got there. I never saw anyone get out of the car, and Paul kept saying over and over, that no one could have survived that. It sure didn't look that way, but we could all see that it was about to really catch on fire when we all got there, so why couldn't someone get out and try to pull anyone out? I felt helpless.
After 15 minutes sitting there, our driver drove the bus onto the dirt shoulder and we passed. About a quarter-mile on up, the Potato truck that lost its load was parked, with ONE trailer. It seemed like the driver was unaware for sometime that his second trailer had come undone, before he looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the DISASTER behind him.
The whole experience was SOBERING because of this fatal car-wreck we just witnessed. I did hope it made our driver more cautious on the way back, because if no one was coming, he always just drove center-stripe style. Yeah.
Okay, Not so morbid:
Back in Buenos Aires, Paul and I took a day, back to the Plaza De Mayo (the VERY first place we stayed- those three nights in a nice hotel before going to Caesar and Hilda's), and went SHOPPING! We did it all in one fell swoop- chocolate, gifts for the boys, scarves, things for ourselves, earrings, various artisan wares, Mate' bombillas... It was fun! It was also fun to come FULL CIRCLE back to where my trip started. It was fun. While on our shopping day, in a market, we ran into these musicians, performing on the street:
They had Cd's... Paul wanted to buy one- so we did. I forgot the name of their band...
The Piano player kept looking at me, but maybe it was part of his stage presence.
This was a picture of me rotating a quarter turn to see down the street of artisans and markets:
I also wanted to post pictures of the dear Caesar and Hilda! They pretty much refused pictures the entire time- Caesar finally forced Hilda, the very MINUTE we were walking out the door, so we got these while the Taxi was waiting on us to depart for the Airport...
They were SO sweet! This is their "child", 'Dali'! She's an old stinky bassett hound and very much loved! Caesar would covertly tear off pieces of bread and feed them to her during dinner and Hilda ALWAYS looked the other way. Caesar would feed her (Dali) as much bread as he ate himself, and Hilda would pay no mind. It was hilarious! Paul told me this before I got there, just as a little anticdote, and when I saw it for myself, I burst out laughing and had to cover with a cough and other excuses to not blow Caesar's cover! lol!
They're so sweet!
Hilda got all weepy-eyed when we left... They loved Paul so much! We really enjoyed staying with them. :-)
Chao Chao!
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