yungas

I just got back from a few days of chewing on coca leaves in the Northern Argentine subtropical cloudforests, hanging out with monkeys and tucans and elementary school kids on a field trip.

And no, Mom, coca leaves are not a drug. It´s just like drinking a lot of mate, which you´re guilty of now. So basically you do drugs, too. Mom I´m so disappointed in you.

From Salta, I took a bus to Ledesma, or Libertador San Martin, I´m not sure which really. The two towns seemed to melt into eachother along route 43 or 86. I arrived on a feria day with a huge outdoor market full of smoking grills separated by your typical Argentine street vendors with some Bolivian influence. From there I walked what would have been 10 km but a logging truck picked me up along the road about 30 minutes in and I hopped in the back with a mumbling old fat man with a chipmunk cheek full o coca and holes in the crotch of his pants, holes unnavoidable to the eyes because he sat on a side-turned tire with his legs opened real wide. We bounced down the rocky road together, his beaming grin toothless save for the few green-black guys that were still hanging on despite years of chewing the leaf. He told me things but I can´t say I understood any of it. I smiled my gringo smile back and we watched as cliffs below the road grew and the river in the valley shrunk into a worm.

I thought myself real tough cruising through the jungle road like that until I saw said group of elementary school kids on a field trip. They all stared at me long and hard, which is what little kids do best in the sweaty DEET and dirt stained face of the unknown. The bugs didn´t eat me as much as I was told, the campsite was comfortable, and there was water provided nearby. The ´technical´trails were the same as the begninner´s leveled trails except longer. There were supposedly jaguars but I didn´t see any.

And just when you think Patch couldn´t be any more of a whiney little b sting he hears a noise in the trees and there are MONKEYS! Two of them, hopping around on the branches and making the sounds you hear in movies. THEN a little later on I saw a tree full of tucans. And as I became more excited I started to notice all the varieties of butterflies and the biggest grasshoppers I´ve seen. I even saw two butterflies doing it, which they do ass to ass. One hangs while the other flies it around from leaf to leaf. It was sexy. Real sexy. Who knew the jungle was so sexy?

I made a great fire despite wet rotting wood to keep the mosquitoes away and dined to a can of lentils and some hard cheee.

Leaving the place I had no luck, and had to walk all 10 of those hot and humid kilometers back to dine and then discover that I was left with half the money I needed to bus back to Salta where I had left some things. So I hitch hiked, having waited more than 2 hours roadside before a trucker brought me to San Salvador de Jujuy at nightfall. Took a bus back to Salta and had some barbecue and some beers with some new friends.

Oh and my insect repellent exploded in the pocket of my pants and it´s real oily and was a pain to wash out this morning.

Today I went to the giant mercado central and bought all kinds of spices and five different kinds of potatoes and sweet potatoes. And chili peppers the size of TicTacs. And some tamales, which are apparently a traditional food down here too. There were papayas the size of my head and the smallest and oldest Bolivian people you´ve ever seen.

Alright, running out of stories and this one´s getting boring. No moral this time.