Tequila and Salt..a..
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
16
30
Trip End
Apr 05, 2007
Salta,
Argentina
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Jules and I headed here a day earlier than Lou (and even ended up staying a day later), as we couldn't get a bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama (Northern Chile) any earlier.
However, it was a real nice little place with some great restaurants and a noticeable 'third-world' feel to it as we approach the Bolivian border. Met a Columbian diplomat on the bus here who very 'diplomatically' invited himself over to our hostel for dinner and entertained us with some fascinating stories. At such short notice (and our backpackers budget) he was served omellette ala Sahara, and he spent just as long opening the bottle of wine he brought along as it did for me to prepare dinner... and Julia to eat it.
Comments
Salta
The 'Columbian diplomat' has to correct Sarah in that she dropped the 'ex'. True,I could still be in the service, I didn't retire proper, I just was allowed to leave so to speak by a very 'sensible' Ministry of Foreign Affairs which didn't see the value in my proposition of extending a non-paid leave-of-absence for the sake of allowing me to finish my graduate studies at the LSE. One of the most unprofessional foreign sevices in the Hemisphere if not on earth, and it is not just that I am still bleeding twenty--plus-years after the event. Ask any one in the know. Or wait until our new Ambassador to South Africa ,a career politician with a murky background arrives there. A persona non-grata candidate.
Yes, I was mangling the opening of the Argentinian wine. Maybe I became so used in my long-ago diplomatic years to others opening the bottles for me. Or maybe corks are a relic. Apart from that it was a darn good 'velada'. I am still pondering if you were nice and somehow care-free because you are South African despite your Brit passport or because I did not do my research while living a couple of years in England and formed the impression that English chicks are, well not like Sarah. Jules too relaxed after a couple of copas.