It seems fitting to end my time in Argentina with a trip to the end of Argentina. I’m blogging from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, where my mom and I have been for the last few days. We said goodbye to Bob on Thanksgiving night in Buenos Aires after a fantastic, and fantastically sweltering week (and a great week before that in Salta). The natural beauty here in Tierra del Fuego is extraordinary, with craggy, snowy mountains and daylight from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. Fuegian highlights have included:

1. A sailboat ride through the Beagle channel to several islands that are currently uninhabited by humans. The air was windy and freezing, but the scenery was fascinating. We stopped and hiked on a tiny island in full spring bloom and watched cormorants and families of geese go about their business. We stopped at the remains of a Yamana camp. The Yamana were nomads who lived here for millenia, covered only in seal or whale greese. Even on a sunny spring day, I couldn’t imagine hanging out naked (let alone diving into the icy water). On the ride back we said hi to a colony of sea lions. The males were so macho.

2. A spectacular drive to Harberton, a historic estancia on thousands of acres of land, even closer to the edge of Argentina. After exploring some of the land, we took a boat to a tiny island where there are two penguin colonies. The pinguinitos are hatching right now. We spent about an hour watching them waddle along and bask in the sun, and listening to their strange, honking/wheezing conversations with each other. Back at the estancia we ate some delicious rhubarb-apple crisp.

3. A hike up to Glaciar Martial, which our new friends from Alaska said wasn’t a glacier at all. Since I’ve never seen a glacier, I thought it was pretty incredible.

Today we’re heading to Tierra del Fuego National Park, and then boarding a plane for El Calafate. The real glaciers are there, apparently. I can’t wait.

I hit the jackpot in my salteño socio-culinary research this weekend. For weeks, people have been recommending that I try slightly more adventurous regional dishes. I think I’ve finally communicated that I have, indeed, tried empanadas. A few times, in fact! I don’t want to give too much away to early, but I’ll just say that Krista and I haven’t been sure where to find some of these dishes because they’re not your typical restaurant fare. We’re talking campo food. Because our moms are far away, Krista and I were invited to spend Día de la Madre with the family of a student (and friend), María Inés. We hopped on a bus on Saturday evening headed to El Galpón. Electricity and hot running water came to El Galpón less than ten years ago. It’s a town where families leave their doors open (nevermind unlocked), and where people buy their milk fresh from the cow and boil it well before putting it on the table. The pasteurized stuff in plastic is far more expensive. It’s lovely and culturally rich, with pre-Columbian rock paintings and Jesuit ruins nearby, as well as a neverending supply of spooky legends and ghost stories. Sometimes temperatures reach 45 degrees (celsius) or more in the summer. It was refreshing to arrive in the countryside just in time for dinner.

María Inés and her mom and dad greeted us exuberantly, and after we put our things in the bedroom, we sat down to eat. It was a typical Argentine dinner scene: bowls of shredded lettuce and carrots, sliced tomatoes and potatoes and hard-boiled egg, a loaf of french bread, and a large platter of carved meat. Also, a pitcher of white wine with ice cubes (not as typical but nice and cool). We served ourselves and made small talk, which was hugely entertaining because María Inés’ dad’s accent is tremendous. There was lots of belly laughing. I had two bites of the meat and realized I had no idea what it was. It wasn’t bad, and I was pretty sure it came from a cow, but it had a texture like I’d never experienced: really soft, with irregular and sometimes large pockets of fat. Here’s a rough translation of the conversation that followed:

Me: Mmm. This is delicious! What kind of meat did you say it is?

Mom: Smiling. Do you like it?

Me: Yes! Mmm. What kind of meat is it?

Mom: Smiling and hesitating. Oh, I’ll tell you after dinner. I’ll show you after dinner. After you eat it.

Krista and I exchanged looks and I got the sense everyone else was in on the secret, but we dutifully kept eating. The moment we finished, María Inés’ mom jumped up from the table. It was time to go out to the back yard to find out whence the meat had been carved.

There we are and there it is. Maybe you need a close up:

Yes, that is the nose on top. And those are teeth. Here’s another view, with Dad and the tongue roasted to a nice golden brown (we didn’t eat it, as Mom was saving it for special empanadas):

This marvel of a dish is called cabeza aguateada, and it can be made with the head of a cow or a pig. The entire head (eyeballs and brain still in place) is wrapped in moistened brown paper, and then either buried with hot coals in a hole in the ground (luau-style) or placed in a mud oven to cook for hours. Ours was oven-roasted. Mom explained to us that the tongue makes delicious empanadas, that the cheek meat is what is usually used in tamales salteñas, and that the cooked brains have their own scrumptious culinary use.

After dinner we strolled to the town plaza and did a few tontodromos with ice cream in hand (anyone out there have a guess at what that means?) and then took a drive in María Inés’ friend’s tin can of a car around the surrounding areas until about 3 in the morning. One highlight was the settlement the Argentine government has built for the local Matacos, a hunter-gatherer indigenous tribe–this was basically public housing in the form of strange rounded tin huts and a community soup kitchen.

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, we woke up late and took a walk around town, visiting a teacher-guru-anthropologist-adventure man with whom Krista and María Inés did some intense bushwhacking in August (it’s worth reading about on Krista’s blog). Then it was back to the house for Mother’s Day lunch (lechón, salad, and bread baked in the mud oven) with María Inés, her brother and his wife and 3-year-old son, and the parents. It was nice to celebrate Argentine Mother’s Day with an Argentine mom. After the festivities, we were picked up by friends to visit a local dam

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dip our feet in a hot springs

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and drink several Salta Negras. That night we listened to gauchos of all ages sing coplas in the plaza and swatted the mosquitoes away.*

*I learned on Monday that I’m both highly delicious and highly allergic to the El Galpón mosquitoes. Let’s just say that I had a steroid shot to combat some massive swelling of the ankles, and I’m now on a course of topical and oral antibiotics, as well as prescription antihistamines. If you’re in the mood for something gory, email me–I have pictures.

Can you see what I’m doing there? Can you see the big grin on my face? I felt incredibly proud to complete that arrow. You know which one I’m talking about.

Here are a few things I lost in Bolivia:

My Brooks running tights.

A favorite black fancy shirt, from Anthropologie.

Some of my favorite underwear.

Several meals, and my appetite, for a few days.

I plan to write more about my Bolivian odyssey here soon, but let’s just say I’m still processing the whole experience. However, I’m pissed about my “lost” clothes! There was an afternoon in Potosí when Krista and I left our backpacks in the luggage storage room at the bus station so that we could navigate the city a little lighter, and when we retrieved them the zippers were kind of funny and definitely not how we left them.

I hope you’re enjoying my running tights (which I only had for one cold season), señor/a boliviano/a! And my favorite shirt.

Ok, I’m done. I had to put a little of my anger out into the world, and now I feel better. More on Bolivia soon.

The woman next to me in this picture is Marisa, my cooking teacher. A couple Wednesdays a month around 2 p.m., I arrive at Marisa’s house with a bag heavy with things like ground beef, bell peppers, powdered sugar, onions, and jars of dulce de leche–it all depends on what we’re making that day–and we get to cookin’. I got to Salta with this idea that I wanted to study regional foods, and I told Mr. Fulbright that in addition to teaching here I’d be working on a cooking project. I’m still not sure how I want to amass and present all that I’ve learned about cooking this year (which is okay because Mr. Fulbright won’t be asking me to report my findings), but I have most certainly learned wonderful and delicious, though maybe not academic, things.

My lessons are in Marisa’s teaching kitchen, which is in her home, through a corridor and across the courtyard from the part where she lives. She’s been a teacher for something like 30 years, and has studied everything that is even remotely related to food, from human nutrition to animal husbandry to effective food-freezing techniques. Marisa has been “retired” from formal teaching for several years, but she gives classes from her home kitchen (apparently her microwave cooking classes are particularly popular) and works with local restaurants and other business as a consultant and caterer. Basically, Salta is in love with Marisa’s cooking. Each time we meet, we make a savory dish and a dessert (always bien salteño), and we only speak Spanish. Marisa once took me to a local market early on a Saturday morning to see where to get the cheapest quinoa and the bright-orangest squashes. I am lucky enough to have individual lessons, which usually last at least three hours. Well, I guess it’s not really “luck” when it costs me lots and lots of pesos.

I have only remembered to bring my camera twice, but I want to share some of the things Marisa and I have created together while chatting about politics, love, the economy, our families, and, most commonly, other delicious foods.

Carbonada, a hearty meat stew with a squash base and lots of vegetables. Anchi, a simple sweet that has indigenous roots and is made of polenta, sugar, and a little lemon juice. It can be eaten hot or cold.

Pastel de choclo, a kind of corn pie. I have some still lifes, artfully arranged by Marisa:

And cooked:

Colaciones, which are tiny, thin, tongue-shaped crackers filled with dulce de leche and then glazed.

Pimientos rellenos, red bell peppers stuffed with a mix of ground beef, potatoes, hard-boiled egg, and spices. She tried to deep-fry them, which I guess is the authentic way to do it, but I told her I liked them better un-fried.

That day, we also made nueces confitadas, which are walnut halves slathered in dulce de leche and then covered in fondant.

With all the dulce de leche and fondant, these each became a two- to three-bite affair.

Medallones de pollo, which were a winner in my book. We took a whole chicken, I cut it up (I learned how!), cooked it with herbs, dipped the pieces in a white sauce, covered them in bread crumbs, and then baked them until they were golden. Wow.

Bocaditos de quinoa, which were little quinoa-zucchini-carrot-reggiano patties. Turron salteño, another ubiquitous sweet. It’s almost like a meringue, and made of just egg whites, miel de caña (molasses), and some sugar.

Zapallos rellenos, another favorite: round zucchini-like squashes stuffed with ground beef, bell pepper, spices, and onion, and topped with a tiny bit of white sauce. Budin de polenta, which was kind of like a flan with polenta and raisins inside, and covered with a layer of caramelized sugar.

Bombas de papa, “potato bombs” for the non-Spanish speakers, which were just soft cheese sandwiched between two slices of cooked potato, battered, and fried. They lived up to the name.

How’s that for a hook? Let me explain. As you may or may not know, I want to be a doctor when I grow up. I plan to begin the official studies towards that goal when I return to the States (of this I am 65-99% sure, depending on the day and hour), but I have been itching to have some kind of doctor experience in the meantime to see what it’s really all about. This is all a part of Figuring Out What to Do with My Life, and during moments of reflection, I ask myself, of course, Arianna, can you handle it?

A close friend here was helpful in putting me in touch with a cardiothoracic surgeon, Pierre, who invited me to observe a real, live surgery. I arrived at the Hospital San Bernardo that morning at 9 o’clock sharp, knowing only that the procedure I’d be watching would be centered somewhere in the patient’s cardiothoracic region. San Bernardo is a major public hospital here. A line of tired-looking people snaked from the lobby down a long hall in one direction, and all of the plastic lawn chairs that had been set up as a kind of waiting area were occupied. There weren’t any mangy dogs wandering around as in another public hospital I visited (on a quest for a yellow fever vaccine), but this place certainly looked like it could at least use a paint job. Pierre’s secretary met me at the entrance and led me to a doctor’s lounge, where I met one of the cardiologists, changed into scrubs, and waited.

When I got to the OR, two nurses (the only other women I saw in the OR all day) were busy prepping the patient, who was already unconscious. He was 52 and had had his aortic valve replaced in June of 2007, but unfortunately his new valve had some leaks that had to be fixed. I learned that valve problems are common in northwestern Argentina as a complication of rheumatic fever.

So, for the cast of characters: two cardiothoracic surgeons (Pierre and another guy), anesthesiologist (dude), cardiologist (man), two nurses (both female), and me. I don’t think anyone in that room quite new what to make of this American girl who was working as a teacher and had no background in medicine, yet wanted to become a doctor. Huh? That kind of story doesn’t really make sense given the Argentine system of choosing a career, which, like lots of other places in the world, takes place when a person is about 18. I’m 25 and haven’t even taken organic chemistry yet. And, I’m a GIRL. The anesthesiologist, who seemed to enjoy making me feel uncomfortable at first, told me I should just continue working as a teacher and not even mess with the whole medicine thing. He also asked me persistently how much money I’m making at my current job.

Pierre was put me on a step ladder so that I could see over his shoulder. I was about a foot away from the action. He asked me, just before the sawing began, whether I’d ever seen the movie Martes 13. I had no idea what he was talking about, then realized he meant Friday the 13th (here, it’s Tuesday instead of Friday). If I’d seen all the gore in that movie, open-heart surgery would be a breeze.

In the end, I neither fainted nor puked. I was determined to maintain my cool, partially for my own dignity, and partially to prove to these macho men that I could handle it. The surgery took a riveting, intense, and exhausting five hours. I’m not sure I’d ever want to be a heart surgeon, but I was amazed at the physicality and precision of the whole procedure. There’s the sawing through bones and the cranking open of the ribcage and the massaging the heart, and there’s the gentle separating of tissues and the stitching-up of miniscule tears. It was fascinating and intimate.

I can’t give a blow-by-blow because I’ll sound like a total novice, but here are some highlights and observations:

There are smells and sounds that happen during surgery that I hadn’t even thought of. Flesh was being cauterized at every step of the way, which made for a nasty burning-person smell. The sawing, obviously, made for lots of buzzing. There were also a lot of sucking noises, as one of the nurses was constantly vacuuming blood and other fluids out of the chest cavity (using a what seemed like a bigger version of what they use to suck excess spit out of your mouth at the dentist).

The patient went into cardiac arrest right after they finished opening his chest, which meant they had to use the defibrillators directly on his heart. He also went into some sort of anaphylactic shock right after they finished stitching his veins up, which made it impossible to normalize his blood pressure without giving him some kind of antidote. This is where I sound really professional. Anyway, there was lots of drama.

Watching the anesthesiologist first stop and then start the heart, and watching the heart muscle react, was awesome.

Standing for five hours is completely exhausting. I’m sure it’s even more exhausting to be operating on a person for five hours.

Doctors talk about funny things in the OR. Lots of chit chat. Lots of dark jokes. At one point, they had to dump icy water into the chest cavity, and Pierre turned to me and said (in English), “Heart on the rocks. Kind of like a bloody mary.” Stuff like that.

I could not stop thinking about how excruciatingly painful it must be to recover from a surgery where your ribs get sawed and clamped open, and where your tissue inside and out gets burned and cut. Ouch.

The whole experience was completely exciting, and the patient woke up feeling relatively okay after I left. I got an open invitation to watch more, which was an honor, and would’ve been a fantastic opportunity, except that a few days later the surgeon (who is married and has small children) began sending me inappropriate and embarrassing amounts of text messages on an almost daily basis.

I think that segues nicely into a post on gender relations and what it’s like to be a woman in Salta…

One aspect of my experience living Salta is the omnipresence of the coca leaf.

Coca is not technically legal in Argentina, but its use is so important to people living in the Andean region (it has deep religious and mystical significance for indigenous cultures) that its presence is tolerated in Salta. You can buy a bag of coca leaves at just any corner store here for just a few cents. In other parts of Argentina, you wouldn’t leave home without your thermos full of scalding water and your mate; here, if you’re a man, you wouldn’t leave home without some leaves and a bag of baking soda (I’ll explain that part in a minute). Banning coca use here would be kind of like outlawing to-go cups of coffee in the U.S.

What does one do with a coca leaf, you might ask? If you’re a woman, probably not too much. If you’re a man, you’d stuff about 15 leaves (maybe more, maybe fewer) into the space between your teeth and cheek on one side. You’d chew a little, and mostly let the wad sit there in your cheek and let your spit draw the juices out. Every once in awhile, you’d take out your pocket-sized bag of baking soda, called bicarbonato or bica for short, stick a finger in, and apply some to the wad in your cheek (to release even more juices). You could also put a handful of leaves into a teacup and cover them with hot water to make a nice coca tea.

Here are some times coqueando might come in handy: when you’re at work and trying hard to focus and finish a project; when you’re driving long distances and hoping to avoid falling asleep at the wheel; when you’re out with the dudes and have had a few drinks (here, those drinks would be Fernet-and-cokes); when you’re getting hungry but can’t eat, whether because you’re on a diet, don’t have time, can’t afford food, or know dinner won’t be until 11 p.m.; when you’re out in the country; when you’ve just had a massive asado and need help digesting. Coca is useful for anyone in high altitudes, as it counters the symptoms of altitude sickness. But, as the title of this post reads, the coca leaf is not a drug. Chewing a few leaves is nothing like doing lines of cocaine. It’s not addictive, and it makes you about as high as a cup of coffee would. I can’t remember the exact figure, but one would need tons of leaves to produce a tiny amount of cocaine. In Bolivia, coca is hugely political and one of Evo Morales’ central issues, but I won’t go into that here.

I consider coca an important part of my Salta experience because it truly is everywhere I look when I leave my apartment. I’d calculate that about 85% of the men I pass on the street have a cheek that looks like it’s stuffed with a golfball, and there are clumps of chewed-up old leaves in the gutters and on the sidewalk. To answer your most burning question: Yes, I have tried the coca. Gasp! It made me alert and gave me a numb cheek. But I don’t coquear often because it’s unladylike.

Having people strike up conversations with me in social situations. Answering questions like “Do you like Salta?” and, “Do you have a salteño boyfriend yet?” and, “How long are you staying?” doesn’t count as conversation.

Riding bikes around Brooklyn with Matt.

Being able to flip open my cell phone and call whoever I want whenever I feel like it. On that note, I miss receiving phone calls on my cell phone. I do not mean that as a guilt trip for those of you who have my number. I understand that it’s complicated.

Thin crust pizza. Zachary’s deep dish pizza. Sushi. Spicy Mexican food. Green papaya salad. The Whole Foods salad bar. Mushrooms. Desserts that don’t have a secret layer or pocket of dulce de leche. Turkey sandwiches. Tofu. Raspberries and blackberries and peaches. Blue Moon with an orange wedge. Really fruity popsicles. Chunky, salted peanut butter. Trader Joe’s. Sunday brunch with friends.

Running in Central Park and Prospect Park and along the water in NYC. Running under leafy, shade-making trees. Running without leaving a wake of drawn-out kissy noises and whistles and ay, hermosssssssas.

Having the linguistic mastery that allows me to articulate my thoughts and feelings clearly and accurately, if I want to.

Having a limitless supply of fantastic books to “borrow” from work. Ok, Mr. Random House, I only borrowed a few.

Waking up to NPR.

Bars that have games and trivia nights.

Having close friends. I don’t mean that in a pathetic way, I just miss having people around who I know well love and who know me well and love me.

That’s all for now.

We received an invitation from Silvia, a teacher/friend/party animal/adoptive mom, to celebrate el milagrito in her town. She promised there would be a parade and a party and lots of horses and gauchos. Oh, and gauchos. Did she mention there would be gauchos? And horses. And gauchos.

Silvia picked us up in a freshly painted white car around 9 on Sunday morning, and we headed out of town. I mention that the car was freshly painted because it looked great on the outside but threatened to quit on us numerous times during the hour-and-a-half drive to Aguas Calientes. I mean that literally: it caughed exhaust and gas fumes (into the car) and stopped a few times and changed gears on its own accord. Silvia even said herself a couple times that she thought we might not make it. But we did, gracias a dios.

The town of Aguas Calientes is tiny tiny and technically in Jujuy, and Silvia and her husband have had a finca there forever. I think that every member of her husband’s family also has his or her own finca there, either nearby or down the road. Silvia is the madrina of Aguas Calientes’ virgin and the caretaker of their festival of el milagro (they call it el milagrito because it’s a mini version of Salta’s celebration of a week ago). We arrived and parked and the outdoor mass had already begun in front of the town’s little brick church.

La Virgen is on the far left, and it’s clear who El Señor is. The Virgen on the right looks exactly like Bolivia’s Virgen de Copacabana, but her exact identity wasn’t confirmed. Anyway. Krista, Tina (a Fulbrighter and friend who was visiting for the weekend), and I sat in green plastic chairs and listened to the mass. When the ceremony was finished, the statues were hoisted onto shoulders and began their procession through town.

Meanwhile, Silvia wanted us to see gauchos. Following her lead, we made our way down to a field on the edge of town (meeting–which means doing the cheek kiss with–about 45 people along the way). There were two reasons Silvia took us to the field: 1. The gauchos were there, warming up their horses for the parade that would follow the religious procession, and 2. The tractors (at least one from each of the local fincas) were there, getting prepped to follow the gauchos in the parade.

Silvia wanted us to ride (or maybe drive?) the tractors. Back to that later.

The three of us stood and watched the horses while Silvia went to fulfill her festival duties. These horses were spectacular. Many of the gauchos were also not so bad to look at. Riders were decked out in boots and hats and billowy pants (or skirts, for the ladies), and horses wore hand-made silver and leather bridles and saddles. If you’ve never seen a Peruvian horse doing its thing, you should google it–these are highly trained to prance (dance?) in a highly stylized and impressive way. Here are some pictures I took while we waited:

There were three brand-new baby horses who won our hearts. Here’s one:

Finally, the religious part of the procession arrived at our post, and it was time for the parade.

Krista hopped on a tractor, and Tina and I opted to watch the parade from the sidelines. The horses pranced and the tractors rolled along, and then the real party started. The chicken and beef and potatoes were thrown on grills, and empanadas went into the deep fryers and ovens. We got some chicken to go and headed to Silvia’s finca, where we had a lovely lunch in her cool kitchen–a relief after hours in the sun.

Afterward, we went a-harvestin’. We picked our body weight in chard and lettuce. And then, on the way back to Salta, we “borrowed” some delicious-looking broccoli from another guy’s farm. He’ll never know.

September of 1692 was a terrifying time for those in the northwest of Argentina. The region was rocked by devastating earthquakes: on September 13th, the city of Esteco (which legend says was the richest and most powerful city in all of Argentina’s northwest) was swallowed up completely. That day in Salta, La Virgen’s statue was found on the floor of the cathedral, her face changing color; desperate because the ground would not stop shaking, the mayor decided to bring the image outside so that everyone could see this miraculous color-changing and pray to her. The earthquakes continued. A priest remembered the statue of Jesus and brought him out too, and the people carried the two around the city in a procession, still praying that the earthquakes would stop. Miraculously, on September 15th, the tremors stopped and the city of Salta was saved.

Every September since, thousands of pilgrims have come to Salta to honor El Señor y La Virgen del Milagro, and to show their gratitude to the images for gift of protection. Lots of people walk for days and days from remote corners of the province to come pray. The novena starts on September 6th, and on the 15th, amid lots of singing and handkerchief waving, the statues are brought out of the cathedral on beds of carnations and carried through Salta’s streets. It’s a special time in Salta, and one that people have been telling us about over and over (and over and over and over…) again since we arrived.

This year, according to the newspaper (though this sounds high to me), 450,000 pilgrims came. In honor of the occasion, the province of Salta had a 5-day weekend. Even though it would’ve been prime time to travel, I decided I wanted to hang out here and experience the processing and the singing for myself. I’m really glad that I stayed. The crowds were crushing at some points–there was a time last Monday, on the morning of the procession, when I wanted to get home from the Plaza 9 de Julio (a 3 block walk) and found myself wedged between about a billion people who definitely wouldn’t let me pass. At one point, my feet were barely touching the ground. I think it’s hard to be an outsider (in so many ways) during such a deeply religious and culturally specific celebration. Krista and I weren’t sure of the exact schedule of events, and where we should be when to watch the procession. We ended up walking a circuitous route from our apartment up to a place near the Monumento Güemes, where there was a stage set up for the priests and other religious guys to renew Salta’s annual pact of honoring the images. It would’ve been a fantastic place to watch, except that we were behind the stage and facing the sun, not to mention wedged in again (though this time not so badly). In the time that we stood in our places, thousands crowded up the hill behind us. There was singing, many Ave Marias, music, and the waving of pañuelos as La Virgen, and then El Señor, passed. I saw the tops of the statues above a billion people’s heads and between flags and parts of the stage. It wasn’t the best view, but the whole experience was powerful and the pilgrims’ faith was palpable. Here are some photos from the day:

Plaza 9 de Julio, and the cathedral

An aid tent for pilgrims set up in the plaza

Our view of the stage–this was soon filled with men, so we were looking at lots of backs

Looking back towards the Monumento Güemes

El Señor passing, pañuelos waving

Pañuelos and flags waving

OH MY GOODNESS. I forgot my favorite part of the day. Parents dress their small children as angels.