Before I start this post if you don't want to read everything that's totally fine but please scroll down to the bottom where I put a link of a video my friend made of our trip! It's beautiful and defiantly worth the watch!
The North trip was probably one of my favourite parts of my whole exchange! I say time and time again that exchange students are the best people for other exchange students because we simply understand. We are going through the same things (to different degrees) which makes it a lot easier to help each other. 50 exchange students went on this trip. And I can't say I made a strong connection with all of them but the friendships I did makes are unbreakable and will last a lifetime.
The first day Clement and I took a bus from our city to buenos aires. The bus ended up being late so when we arrived we went directly to the meeting point of our group.. Nobody was there.. We had to be there for 9 and it was only 8:30. Both Rotary and the travel company to left the meeting spot early without all the students..
1. Bus stops are dangerous in general and 2. If you are a foreign everybody knows right away which makes you even more of a target
We walked around for 15 minutes and kept checking the meeting spot calling all of the roarty contacts trying to find out where our group was. Finally at the back of the terminal we found Eva, another exchange student from Germany! I was so happy to see Eva since she is from my district and I already knew her. She said that she had lost the group when she asked to go to the bathroom. Great. Now there was 3 of us lost. Finally my friend Anna (from Norway) called me asking me where I was. She then explained to me how to get to the bus which was outside the terminal in the back. When we got to the bus I waved at the people I knew from my district with a big smile. The first thing the Rotarian accompanant told me was "if your late again we will start counting points"
This wasn't the best first impression as I still had 5 minutes left until 9. But I just stayed quiet and jumped on the bus.
The whole first day and night we were on the bus. It was a long travel day but we had time to get to know everyone new and catch up with those from our district which was really nice
Our first stop was Iguazú!
The first day we went to the point of three countries. Where Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay meet :)
Later we got to go your around the city a little bit.
Ok so I don't know if I've told you how much I have missed ranch dressing. I just can't eat salad soaked in olive oil and vinegar (I've tried so many times I promise). For the first time in my whole exchange I found a Casear salad. This was a big deal for me. Casear isn't Ranch but it was close enough.
This salad was so good! I had to put my vegetarianism aside for a meal to eat the chicken but honestly it was worth it! This salad was like heaven.
The next day we took a tour of the national park and visited the very famous waterfalls! Within 5 minutes of walking in this park everyone was soaked.. And we hadn't reached a place close to the water yet... It's kind of embarrassing but yeah we were all sweaty! It was so hot and so humid that any activity made you sweat bullets.
The falls were very beautiful, we all really enjoyed our time there!
Here are some pictures of us visiting the waterfalls.
Group picture! Can you find me?
The beautiful falls!
Showing off our entrances!
Me and Rapha! The only other Canadian on the trip! We actually kind of look like sisters in this picture.
I really great part of the day was when we actually got to go in a boat and go into the waterfalls! It was lots of fun! And this time we were soaked with water!
We found these guys when we went for a snack.. They seemed pretty friendly.
(Johannes stole my hat)
Next stop : Jujuy
Jujuy is the highest provience in Argentina and boarders with Bolivia and Chile. We spent the most time in Jujuy out of all the provinces and it was my favourite! I absolutely loved it! The climate was hot but dry so I was nice heat.
We spent a lot of time in the pool but also a lot of time touring around.
We visited a cactus maze and took titanic pictures.
This was our hotel as you can see each room is its own little house.
Yup that's right there was llamas at the hotel!
Some quality pool time :)
Ok so our room (with single beds) got infested with ants so we got upgraded for one night to a room with a bed bigger than a king bed that could probably fit 5 people.. You can't even see the end of it in the picture. If you know me you know I love big comfy beds so this was about as great as finding the Ceaser salad!
We reached a high point!
Actually maybe too high.. One guy (Martin) actually passed out and we had to call an abulanse. But everything ended up ok! Do you know that Jujuy is the only place in Argentina you can legally buy Coke leaves? (because they help prevent getting sick from the height). Legit everyone bought Coke leaves or drank Coke leave tea to not feel bad. I didn't really enjoy the taste that much.. Now I don't have a picture but while we we were touring, we found this really cool restaurant with writing all over the walls and there we tried llama soup, other rare dishes and I fell in love with gaucamole (something I never like before).
Las sierras de los 7 colores . Yup that's right! See those fancy mountains in the back ground? They are famous for their speacial 7 couloured dirt.
We also went to a couple big markets and everyone bought matching llama sweaters. (Llamas are kind of a big deal)
Some people even bought matching pants!
We had lunch in the middle of a big market with a live band that was very interested in where everyone was from. We got to talk to them afterwards and they told us their whole life story. It was so neat!
So while we were in this kinda cave thing there was this woman selling jewelry with stones and this paper says what each colour of stone helps you with.
This piece of rock is fenced so that nobody ruins it because it looks like a frog. I thought that was pretty cute.
For carnival you can buy wine flavoured icecream.
But you will also get sprayed with flour or foam... Jajaja
This very Canadian t-shirt was lent to me my a girl from the USA, it really surprised me that she had this shirt! It was a nice gesture.
Welcome to salta!
When in salta you must go to the Salinas! All that white is not the snow is Canadians are used to.. It's salt. (But you probably already figured that out)
Yeah we licked a giant salt llama!
We also got to spend sometime in tha capital and I ate McDonald's for the first time on exchange! (Mom don't be mad)
Shopping and McDonalds (note the first day I started not to fell great but thought it was just allergies)
There was a monument that you could climb up behind.
Rainbow ring around the sun was cool to see.
Ok I go to bed and wake up the next day not too well.. This is where the story yes interesting.. Because I'm not the only one.. Me and 5 other people were sick. But the worst 3 were Makeena (usa), Alia (usa) and me. So the other 3 went horse back riding with the rest while us 3 stayed in the hotel. Trust me I'm not one to miss a day of excursion! It wasn't a soft sickness. Let me tell you how I felt. My whole body felt sunburn (even though it wasn't), when I marked my skin the mark wouldn't go away (for example indenting your skin with your nail), I had a high fever, the worst headache I have ever had in my entire life, all my muscles were so sore, my nose was running like I had a cold and sometimes also bled, I couldn't control my temperature (one minute I was freezing the other I was boiling) and I felt so weak I sat instead of stood in the shower. The other girls were also vomiting. They wouldn't let us eat anything and the Rotarian told us "go back to your room what are you doing out here! You don't look that sick to me!" When we were only trying to get tea because our throats were killing us. They called doctors to hotel and we ended up having to go to the hospital. Poor Alia actually had to get a shot in the bum which apparently really hurt. When I saw this I got scared praying I wouldn't have to have the same thing done. Thank goodness I had lowered my fever enough (with ice on my forhead) not to need one!
The hospital was public which was nice but also was dirty and kinda sketchy.
Basically I only ended up getting a pill and my blood taken. Now as I said we were allowed to eat anything. So when they took my blood I instantly became super dizzy with blurry vision and I thought I was going to pass out. So they found a glass of water and put sugar in it and I drank it which made me feel better until I walked a very short way across the hospital to meet the other girls. The motion made me feel dizzy again and I had to sit down. Finally we could got outside to a little cafe and get some food. We ate grilled cheese and drank Coke to help with the blood sugar.
Alia was so bad she actually had to get x-rays and take speacial medication.
We were waiting in the hospital like this.. Looking fantastic.
Anyways.. After a long day at the hospital they told us that they would get our results back for dengue in 4 days.
Hot showers and soup helped a lot that night.
So 4 days later.. We get our results back and all 3 of us are positive. At least that's what they said at first. Then that night they took our blood again and trust me we were in locked down quarantine! Nobody could leave the hotel, more people fell sick, all the sick people were all put in one room and couldn't leave. In only 11 hours the blood tests came back and said we were negative for dengue, but that we had to return back home right away... Hmm.. I smell something fishy. We were also told to go back to the doctor as soon as we got home. If the first results took 4 days how could the second results take less than half of a day? If we were ok why did we need to be rushed home and continue to go to the doctor. Well later on Alia over hear the roatrian telling her host parents that they weren't actually sure if we had dengue or not but that if we had dengue we never would have been able to leave the province. So basically we came to the conclusion that we were lied to about our health... Unfortunately because we had to return home we missed 3 days of our trip :( I did go back to the doctor here in San Nicolas but it's been a long time and I still haven't gotten my results back.. I think they got lost when they were sent to the other city. So the mistery is, did we ever have dengue or not? I personally think we did since we had a lot of the symptoms. But who knows, either way we no longer have to worry because we are way past the time period where we and pass along the diease or die if we get bitten again (the second time is where things go really really south). At least before we left our trip we got to go to Catamarka! We had a nice time at the hot springs and found a nice hill to take pictures at!
Makeena and Alia are now my Dengue sisters and we have an unbreakable bond (especially since we spent so much time on the bathroom floor with each other holding eachothers hair up). I hope to visit them since they live only a country away!
I know it looks like I only brought like 3 or 4 outfits on this trip but I promise that's not the case! hahaha!
What it was like on the bus?
Well a lot of singing, dancing, goofing around, laughing, heart to hearts, friendship building and of course Regaton!
This is my favourite picture of my friend Louis from when we were on the bus!
Some people woke up wit drawing on their face..
Besides the dengue, this trip was amazing! A trip of a lifetime that I will never forget with some of the most amazing people in the world! I wouldn't trade this trip for anything! I wish I could do it all over again! It's been a long time now since I've seen all the other exchange student and I sincerely miss them a lot! (Yes we had matching rotary shirts)
This video was made by Anna (from Norway) of our north trip! It's amazing! Please watch it!
