Day 12: August 26, 2007 In Salta

  Salta, Argentina
Sunday, August 26, 2007

Day 12: August 26, 2007 In Salta

We slept in late again since it was Sunday. After a toast and jelly breakfast, Elena laid down on the sofa. She was still not feeling great although she had slept fairly well. I wrote while she watched yet another soccer match. By noon she was feeling okay and by 1:00 she was smiling again. We left the compound and walked up the hill to go have an asado with Tuity and his family. I remembered the way to his street but the neighborhood had changed so much since I last stayed there, in 1999, I realized we had walked by the house so I called Claudia and asked for the address. She gave me the wrong number so we walked by it a second time. Fortunately, Estela saw as out the window and rounded us in. We found Tuity and Luchi inside cooking the asado along with Alejandra Dalenz Farjat, the XR paleontologist. She, Tuity, and I are co-authors on a paper but I had only met her briefly at the office and had never really talked with each other.
Elena showed Luchi her soccer video on YouTube. Everyone was impressed with her style, including her father! She has several other videos shot by her friend, Leslie Schallock. They obviously have fun making them but Steven Spielberg can rest easy.

Tuity

Estela

We ate an excellent meal with various meats, vegetables, and a dessert of peaches topped with dulce de leche. Afterward, Luchi brought out her guitar and she, Elena, and I passed it and another guitar around a few times, entertaing the others. Luchi has a beautiful voice. Elena surprised me with how well she does considering that she just started in May.

We decided to go for a drive through San Lorenzo. We piled into Tuity's Toyota SUV and cruised through the ritzy neighborhood situated about 8 km west of the Salta city center. Tuity took us up into the new Buena Vista hillside development where he and Estela purchased a lot and intend to build their retirement home. It has a nice fiew across the Valle de Lerma to the high, grass-covered hill north of the city and the mountains on the east side of the valley behind UNSa.

We continued northward up the west side of the valley and took the road that leads past numerous mansions to the estates above the Río Yacones canyon. I first went there with an UNSa class in 1989 when descended into the canyon and collected a paleomagnetic section. One of the students discovered a garnet-bearing tuff that I immediately correlated with the Corte Blanco Tuff that José Viramonte had shown me way up on the Puna. He, some students, and I published two papers about the tuff and the paleomagnetic section. I hadn't been in the area since 1956 when two WCU students (John Kotila Ron Hilliard) and I sampled some sandstones in the canyon.

Before returning to Grand Bourg, we stopped at a restaurant along the Río San Lorenzo for coffee/tea and cake. Elena and I split a chocolate mousse. The place was packed, mainly with Argentine tourists.

Tuity dropped Elena and me off back at the XR compound. After we were inside, Elena confided in me that her stomach was bothering her again. I made a dinner of leftovers but she was not interested in eating. After dinner, she had a bout of traveler's diarrhea. I dug into my kit and found a couple of ancient anti-diarraheal remedies that I gave her. She had the chills so she went to bed, still feeling uncomfortable. I edited the story I wrote the day before I turned in at 11:30. I was glad to see that she was asleep.