Today I got a wonderful opportunity to actually get in with the pueblos and the peoples of Argentina. I took a bus all the way from Salta to San Salvador de Jujuy, which is a different area. It’s a very short bus ride. It’s part of a long journey for me to see more of the indigenous peoples of Argentina—the pueblos. A chance to ingratiate myself a little bit more into the culture. First, this morning when I got up I did a little bit of a journal entry and I didn’t write about too much, but I really wanted to do another one tonight because so much happened during the day that I really was excited about it. I took many walks, I saw different things, and I was just so interested and excited by what I saw that I really felt the need to write this down and to be able to share it with you guys so you could get an opportunity to recognize and to see some of what I saw in Argentina.
Part of what I saw in Argentina wasn’t so great to be honest, but it is important that sometimes when you travel you see some of these things, see parts of the country that you may not necessarily see as a general tourist, especially if you come to a place like Argentina. When you’re traveling I noticed that a lot of the times we will stay in places like the big cities, the major cities, the places that have the infrastructure, the tourism sections, the tourism boards, the tourists, even kiosks that have people that speak English so that they can help you, but sometimes you do have to find yourself off of that deep path, put yourself in a different space. Today I did it all; and I was so happy that I got an opportunity to do that today because it was one of the most wonderful traveling days I’ve had so far.
I even got a chance to sit down and sort of interview somebody that lives here. We talked for a little while, we talked about how hard life is and how some of the struggles prevent you from moving ahead in life and getting the things that you want to do that would make you happy. It seems like it’s a blocker and an impossibility from the things that you are currently or the situation that you’re currently in here in Argentina. It’s a very poor place, I must say. I did get a concept that it was a little bit of a poor place, but I really didn’t know that San Salvador de Jujuy was such a very poor place to be honest. Salta was also poor, but it didn’t show the signs that I saw today.
I came on the bus and there wasn’t a lot of people coming here. I think that maybe Jujuy isn’t the place that people come to visit very often, mostly because the only reason to really come over to Jujuy, which is what I’m doing, is to go see to Purmamarca and Hurmamarca. If you’re not somebody who’s going to those places or even if you are going to those places, you might just pass through versus stopping there. So the bus was empty. There were maybe eight people on the bus.
It was a very comfortable bus ride all the way here. I got here earlier in the day for the hotel, so I just checked in, left my stuff in there and I went to walk. I went and looked for art museums. When I was in Salta, I had taken the advice of the professor and I had gone to the art exhibit, and I had such a great time that I really wanted to see if I can recreate that here in San Salvador—lo and behold, they did have an art exhibit. It was nice.
I wouldn’t say that I consider them like great artists, but it was good to be able to see that even in a very small space like this, people are pushing their art forward and trying to show that their artistry can shine and actually have a place in this space that it’s marred by poverty. Then after that, after I saw the art, one of the things that is interesting that I had mentioned before is that all of these cities and all of these places you really do have to recognize they’re organized in cuadras or squares and that kind of organization and pattern leads to like main squares or leads to the main areas of the plazas, of the city, of the town. So I went to the main park in the main town and I got to see such a vibrant display of people. There were people out there getting haircuts, there were people selling all these things, there were children playing with the wooden toys again.
The bus stop, it was run down. It was really run down. There wasn’t a lot of stuff going on there. Most of the shops were shacks. The shops themselves weren’t like fancy shops or anything like that or any of the newer like businesses that you see with the glass enclosures or anything like that. It was just regular shops that, you know, people come, they pull down their little wooden board that’s chicken wire and things like that and. They’re selling their goods and a lot of them are selling their goods on the street in carts as well along the street side.
It kind of likened me back to Jamaica and how, we as a people, do our markets and have market. When you go to Montego Bay you’ll see the same kind of behavior and it kind of made me feel a little bit more comfortable to know that, hey, my peoples, those are my peoples. Mi gente.
I might not be able to speak Spanish as wonderfully as all of them and as fluently as all of them, but I was able to speak Spanish enough to introduce myself to one of the locals there when I was sitting having a beer, and we had a wonderful conversation about how being in San Salvador and being a part of certain communities, it makes you an outcast, especially if you’re one of the pueblos. One of the people who are the poor people. One of the people who have the darker skin, who have the not-so-white features that they’re—I guess, promoting and praising in here in Argentina. So it was just so strange to hear that the kind of xenophobic reactions and behaviors in a day like today in, you know, big 2018.
It still exists. It’s still here. It’s still there.
And when you’re traveling, you’re as a tourist, you may not be privy to this information. You may not be somebody who is seeking out this information or understands this information but it sometimes it is best to get in with the locals so you can get a sense of what’s going on and see them for who they are, see them for what’s going on with them, the things that are affecting their daily lives and just seeing the amount of poverty and seeing the xenophobia, I was like, wow, this is a very different part of Argentina than Palermo where you’re going, and you’re spending a lot of money on like a shake and here beer is very cheap. Beer is very cheap.
The hotels are very cheap too. So it’s, and it’s a stark comparison and I really want to think about it and to see it and to be able to appreciate the privilege that I have to be able to travel here and to see this and to not be trapped in this like the woman that I spoke to earlier. The whole story of her supporting her family was quite sad.
It could be very sad of a life to be able to live here, and you don’t think that you have opportunities to exit this space, and to be able to get out of a place like this because it seems like a trap. There are no pathways out. There are no jobs. There’s no money. There’s no anything and you still have to feed yourself. You still have to take care of your family. There’s still lots of things for you to do because life goes on. But I really wanted to take the time out to talk about this and to share a few pictures, but it’s late at night, and I’m going to bed, so signing off.
-Tall Black Nomad