Salta and a lot of churches

On the bus from Posadas to Salta I got talking with an other woman traveling alone. She had done good research regarding hostels and I joined her to see if there was room for me too. It turned out that they did, but we couldn't check in until later. We left our luggage and went out for breakfast. Neither of us were specially good in Spanish and when we ordered two large juices, at a place recommended by Chloe, the man looked weired at us. Why? It was not two large juices we had ordered, but two jugs. I managed to drink it all=) I think that says a lot about the "breakfast" one gets on the buses.


While eating our breakfast several very young children came begging for money. We knew that giving money to them is no good because the mother is usually nearby and will take the money at once. The mother sends her children to beg for money instead of sending them to school, and that is something I can not support., even though it is very hard to say no to the children. We found two of the youngest children when we were finished and gave them the rest of the pizza instead=) All over Argentina I got surprised at the poverty that existed.

Before we went back we stopped at the tourist information, but we did not get to think long before we booked a trip. Right across the road from the tourist information was a tour arranger and of course the trip was booked when we walked out the door. I was not surprised when I ran into some of my classmates later that day and they told me they did the same thing.

On Sundays there is an artistic market in Salta where artists come from all over the area to sell their products. There was all sorts of things to buy there and the artists like to talk about what they make. Once again I wished I could speak Spanish. This was a great place to buy souvenirs or gifts and not ending up with some junk. market,

There was a hill in the city, San Bernardo Hill, that could be reached by cable car. Being restless from not having exercised for a long time I had to check if it was possible to get there by foot. It was=) It was x amounts of steps to the top and a road leading to the top as well. I decided to go for the stairs and got a great view at the top and some good cheering on the way up:)  On the way down I took the road and met a lot of other runners and also cyclist, everyone with a nice hi:) But when I started my run in the city back to the hostel I just had to close my ears from all the comments.

We finished the day by visiting the 7(!) churches that were located within only 7 blocks! They were all big and fantastic. None of them in the same colour and several of them could remind me of a wedding cake. Wedding cakes with different topping. The amount of churches and the decoration of them makes one think of the amount of money they had to have spent on them and how hard they had to have tried to convert the locals to Christianity. Not to think of the money they still spend on maintenance. For me it seems crazy. To end a long and eventful day, we went to a peña; A place where musicians meet and play without it being a performance. Since Salta is touristic, this was not a real peña, but people paid to perform. Either way it was fun to see the traditional dance and listen to the music:)

The hostels name was Hostal La Posta. It had a good location, very helpful host, a nice backyard, clean and very cosy. I would recommend this hostel too:)

Church nb 1, the pink one

Seem familiar?

Market=)

What a colour on a house!

It seems like anyone that has ever done something in Argentina has a statue with them on a horse..

Church number 2, the blue one...

A surprisingly modern backyard of the blue church 

Church number 3, the white one

Church number 4, the red one

Here you can definitely see what I mean with wedding cakes...

Church number 5, the oldest one, yellowish

Church number 6, the beige one

Church number 7, the grey/brown one to high for my camera...

This was the church that looked most like a Norwegian church

The pink church by night

The lack of engineers in Norway

As a part of the lack of engineers in Norway I was contacted by the newspaper Adressa. They wanted to do an article about the high demand for newly educated engineers and how most of the students have a job long before they finish their master. Of course I said yes:p

Here's how I looked in the paper: http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/okonomi/article1771092.ece

There are many suggestions about what should be done with this problem. Some have suggested to erase our student loans after we've finished. Some years back this was actually the case, where half of our student loan  got erased if the student graduated when he or she was supposed to. This is a solution I think we could go back to as more and more students spends longer time on their master.
Others are looking at how to recruit more students. I have no idea why they look at it that way. To day the capacity at my uni has already reached its limit: Students do not even have a place to sit and study. There is a need for more university buildings if more students are to be educated to become engineers before they start recruiting more students. Maybe the politicians should have a look at how many they educate within the different work groups too. For me, I can not imagine where all the jobs for the many social anthropologists and masters in history are. If anyone do, please fill me in=)

Weekend and winter --> skiing=)

This has been a beautiful weekend full of skiing! It started on Friday when I went to cheer on my brother in the Norwegian Cup for cross country skiing. It was a cold experience. Minus 14 degrees C. But still fun, one just have to keep on moving and be very engaged in the cheering. I came without the start list and since the organizer of the event did not hand them out it was difficult to cheer on the people I know. I do not recognize people in skiing suits (plus there faces were more or less covered due to the cold). Luckily university's sports team have very distinct racing suits; mostly green and with some black and yellow. They are perfect; One can recognize them anywhere and from far away. The competition is very tough in Norway and on Friday not even Petter Northug jr made it to the sprint finals.

On Saturday it was my turn to participate. I signed up for Markatrimmen, a 27 km long race, skating. It had been a long time since there had been any snow at all in Trondheim, but during the night it snowed a lot and because of that the tracks were awful; they were very loose and since the track was a bit narrow to begin with it made it almost impossible to get past anyone. It was also impossible to skate up the hills because the snow was too loose and one ended up walking, and there were no breaks downhill either, just more work. Even so, I enjoyed skiing again and I made it in less than 2 hrs with a great effort at the final stage. Here are the results for those who are interested: http://www.skiklubben.no/images/stories/markatrimmen/resultater_fristil_2012.pdf

Today, the whole family except my sister,got up insanely early for a Sunday to cheer on my brother. A 10 km classic race was on the schedule. It was no warmer than Thursday so once again it was a cold experience. My brother was not pleased with the result, but I enjoy cheering on him anyway=) We were back in my apartment before I would usually get up on a Sunday!

Petter Northug jr

Vegard Godø, the only other senior from Møre og Romsdal participating in the sprint

My brother has started:)

AND when we were not outside skiing, we were sitting inside watching all types of sports where skies are involved on tv :p

San Ignacio

On my way to Salta and the north-west of Argentina I made a stop in San Ignacio. In the down you find one of the missions founded by the Jesuits. The ruins in this down is very well preserved. There are more ruins nearby, both in Argentina and in Paraguay. Even though it was interesting to see how they lived, and especially since the society was almost communistic, and to see that the plaza was so central also here,  it was not the most interesting thing that happened during my stay.

It all started when I arrived late on the bus terminal. Because of some stupid tourists on my tour in Brazil we ended up getting back later than expected and I had to catch a later bus to San Ignacio. This bu also got delayed so when I got to San Ignacio it was past midnight. I thought no worries: I had booked a hostel and I had been told the hostels were close to the bus station. After I left the bus and the drivers had called me loco for traveling alone many times, I was lost. It was almost no light and there were no people. The other person that also got of the bus had walked fast in the direction that seemed like the only way to go, so I decided to follow him. After a while I met a guy, that of course seemed scary at first, but helped me with directions. Sadly he could inform me that there were no taxis in San Ignacio at this time of day(or night). The next people I met really scared me, they told me the place I was going to were several km away and no light. I didn't believe them and went towards a sign saying hotel hoping they could help me. By now there were some people in the street and more streetlights. A girl outside the hotel spoke English (Hurray!) and told me it was only some blocks down the road. Sadly I had to walk away from the light and towards the darkness again.  When it started to get really scary again I realized I was walking past the police station and I decided to ask the man on duty just to be sure. He told me that the place I was looking for was several km away, as the other had did. And my hope faded of ever getting to sleep this night. One doesn't move fast with a heavy backpack on one's shoulders. Luckily he got me a "taxi" and on we went. Away from everything that seemed slightly safe to the dirt road and the forest. A lot of thoughts ran through my mind before he stopped. It was nothing there. Just a house I could barely see in the darkness. I explained to the driver that this could not be the place and he understood were I really was going. There was only one letter difference between this place and the name of my hostel. Finally I arrived at my hostel, only 2 blocks from the police station (unbelievable!), but it was closed! And when I turned around the taxi had gone. After knocking and yelling for a while, I decided to walk towards the centre again hoping that the English speaking girl was still sitting there: She was!=) Even before I reached here, she saw be and asked me what was the matter. I explained and she just said "I know what to do". All of a sudden I was in an other car and two minutes later I was outside an other hostel that was open! Happiness! I hugged the girl a long time before she left. THANK YOU!

I do not think I was in any danger at any time, but I was tired and it was dark. And in Argentina it seems like they have a tradition of fear, that I am not so certain that they really need to have any longer. This is the only time I ever felt scared my entire trip. People in Argentina are just very kind, helpful and really likes to talk. (Even if you don't speak Spanish). But their tradition of fear also planted a seed of fear in me because of all the warnings and stories people told. And I understand it is nor easy to get rid of.

The next day I got to know Chloe, my only roommate. A French girl also traveling by herself. After visiting the ruins, we went to have empanadas and beer for lunch. This was the first time I tried empanadas and the Argentinean beer: I loved both of them=) I had such a good time in San Ignacio, I was sad to leave so soon. It was a nice place once I got a place to sleep. The service at this hostel was also fantastic; They couldn't get a taxi for me when I was leaving so the owner drove me himself. The place was called San Ignacio Adventure Hostel and had a nice location, a garden and a swimming pool=)

How the mission looked originally

Chloe had been in Argentina longer than me and thought me the tradition of drinking mate, a really nice drink=)

Systems for handling water:)

No one has lived here for long...

Nice "tiles"

A lot of renovation going on in Argentina

Empanadas, beer and good company:) Notice the "thermos" covering the beer...