Salta, Argentina

I´m waving my Gringo flag wide and high today.

First off, I´m finally getting some laundry done at the hostel, which means all I have left to wear today is a pair of shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt from a radio station. Salta is a pretty modern town, though not without it´s charms (the old central plaza, guys pushing huge fruit carts up and down roads strewn with VWs and even a Porsche or two) and the people, a fetching blend of Spanish, Italian, and Arab, tend to dress rather sharply. Long story short, even though it´s about 80 degrees here today, not even the little school kids are wearing shorts. Add to that a low population of tourists, and I´m basically a sore thumb.

Secondly, I´ve somehow taken to flashing the ¨A-OK¨ sign to people whenever they help me out. This is a pretty ridiculous gesture (thumb and forefinger create circle, three remaining fings flare like a rooster´s tail) which I´ve never *ever* used before. How I managed to spontaneously incorporate it into my arsenal of body language is absolutely inexplicable. This would all be rather neurotic and harmless if not for the fact that the ¨A-OK¨ sign essentially means ¨fuck off¨ in most South American countries, with various subtexts bringing into question various family members and alternative lifestyles depending on which region you happen to be in.

So imagine this: you´re walking down the street in Baltimore and a Spanish-speaking tourist comes up to you smiling with embarrassment and asks in broken but discernable English whether you can tell him where the nearest ATM is. You´re a good person, so you speak in slow, clear sentences and explain how to get to the nearest cash machine. You feel good about yourself, having done a good deed. The Spanish-speaking tourist, overflowing with gratitude, shakes your hand and says ¨Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.¨ Then, he steps back, smiles broadly, waves goodbye, and promply flips you the bird before wandering off.

I´ve done this three times today. I keep telling myself to stop but that damn little hand keeps flipping up and throwing it out. Really need to concentrate on this.

Had a good conversation with one of the sisters in the family who runs the hostel this morning. After three days in Boliva with good Spanish-speakers, it was good to get back to my rambling, stammering ways. At one point, when she said she liked Salta more than Buenos Aires because it was more laid back, I was actually able to communicate the fact that I liked the western U.S., also because it was more laid back. I also complained about how much vacation Europeans get and, for the first time, explained that I had gotten laid off from my job rather than just quit.

It would have been the beginning of a great day if not for the fact that I spent the rest of the afternoon telling everyone I met to fuck off.