There are some things that seem to endlessly baffle and amaze friends and family back home in England. For one, the time difference. The second, the way the seasons are reversed. To be fair, it is a bit nuts to get one’s head around the fact that whilst you guys were having a snow day, I was having a very lovely pool day. Since I’ve been here a while and I am used to doing the calculations to what time it will be at home and will inherently know what kind of weather it will be at home, it doesn’t blow my mind quuite so much but you do have to get used to it.
So, whilst it’s the depths of winter for everyone at home, here it’s the heights of summer and so it’s (finally), the summer holidays! 🥳 This meant that we got to go on holiday, woop woop! Last year, 2020, from March onwards literally only went out of Salta city centre once for a day to a place that’s an hour away so really really glad we got to get away!
We went to a place called Cafayate. It’s about three and a half/four hours away via car (everyone always says it’s about two hours away but that’s complete lies) and it’s honestly breathtaking. If you look at pictures online you might think you’re looking at the Grand Canyon, it’s got those kinds of vibes. There are mountains everywhere and rocks of loads of different colours! Orange, red- it’s so beautiful! And amazingly, the journey there, whilst wind-y (as in the roads) and a little tedious, is all part of the experience.
Unfortunately, for me the first few days of holiday weren’t so great as I was a bit unwell following the events posted about in my NYE blog. Bad stomach pains, feeling exhausted and energyless and had to be on a boring diet 🙄 which at points made me feel grumpy but eventually got through to the other side and slowly started to improve and feel better.
We were staying in a neighbourhood called La Estancia. If you watched Race Across the World last year, you’ve seen it! Turns out, the hotel that’s in the neighbourhood in La Estancia is the hotel that they go to in Race Across the World! (I vehemently told Nolz he was wrong about this until he confronted me with the google link to prove it and had to somewhat eat my words). But anyways, there are lots of houses owned by Americans in Cafayate apparently and the house we were renting was owned by one such American! I was called upon to speak sweetly in English which I always find inherently bizarre, being in Argentina and being required to speak English. I speak to English in Nolz but no-one else really! And my brain is like, you are in Argentina, you speak Spanish. Very strange needing to speak English. If someone addresses me in English I automatically reply in Spanish, I can’t help it! Always think my voice sounds very weird speaking English again. Anyways, the man we were renting off was great, if not a little quirky as he declared to us that COVID does not exist and he’s tempted to make a NO MASKS sign outside his house. Right. (Always a little tempted to reveal that I’ve had COVID in these kinds of situations but probably not a good idea to get into a debate with the man so decided to keep my mouth shut and not utter a word on the matter.)
Well, over the first week or so we were busy!
In the place we were staying there was a restaurant, tennis court, golf course and bikes to rent so we made use of all these things in the first week or so. The golf course was mainly frequented to by Javier and Cristian who are big on golf, but the rest of us did make a little visit to it one day to what I think is called the putting green (?). Think mini golf but without all the fun little details and places to walk round. In fact, scratch that, think of a putting green and you’ll get the vibes of what it was like 😂
I’d love for you to picture the golf course scene for a moment if you’d indulge me. Beautiful mountains as a backdrop. Serene tranquility on the well kept golf course. A slight hum of happy, contented voices, all practising their swings (or whatever it was they were practising). But hang about.. is that dog digging a huge hole in the middle of the golf course..?! Well, reader, I can tell you that said dog was having an absolutely delightful time. Undoubtedly an even better time than all of us based on the wagging of his tail!
The best thing about him was that he would dig for a couple of moments and then submerge his head completely in the hole (presumably to assess his progress) with his rear out in the open, evaluate for a few seconds and then the process would continue! When the man came along in his high-vis jacket to give the dog a little visit, he promptly made his way to the little lake/pond nearby to clean himself off and submerge himself in the water. .. before returning back to his hole and making it even better.
Asides from our time in la Estancia, we also spent some time in the town centre, browsing the shops and having a little nose around. Cafayate is known generally for its wine and vineyards so I made sure to try some of the Toronto (white wine) ice cream which was very yummy! We also played a sport called paddle. When I tell you what it is it will make you think of squash, though Ive never played squash so my point of reference is tennis. So think of tennis but there are walls to the court and you can use them to your advantage to thwack the wall back to the other team. I really enjoyed paddle!! To begin with I was absolutely hopeless. I feel like, Nolys family are all-rounders. They’re all quite into sport and exercise but they can also dance and play instruments! I would say my family are singers. Which is all very well and good if you want an impromptu four part harmony but it’s not really something that needs to be deployed in this kind of situation. So, unsporty British gal that I am, I was feeling rather intimidated by this whole new sport. When we’d visited the tennis court a couple of days before Nolz was working on me to develop more of a sporty stance. Literally not a sports person at all. However, as the evening progressed, under the guiding advice of Noly’s family I slowly improved and felt more comfortable and whilst I wasn’t that much of an asset on the Nadz and Nolz team (we lost every match however always got at least one if not two! games) I surprisingly enjoyed it! Although I was somewhat frightened of Javier’s serves and at points had to resort to putting my hands over my head in a protective stance when one of those was coming at me. The thing about paddle is that for some reason, it’s really loud when you thwack the ball! Must be something about the rackets. Rather intimidating for newbies like me!
So anyways, the above that I’ve filled you in on is about the first half of the holiday. I was planning on writing it all in one post but hadn’t accounted for my lengthy commentary on the dog in the golf course so think I shall make it into a two-parter and fill you in on the rest of the holiday in the next blog post. See ya then!
Ta ra for now!
Nadia's Adventures 