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Other entries in Jujuy

forgot a couple things about this place

i must make a correction: the name of this place Jujuy is pronounced ¨Hu-Huie¨ not You-youie like i thought. and about the border crossing, i forgot to include a very hilarious observation from yesterday. while we were waiting in line for over 45 minutes, i would notice from time to time that many people would walk across without procedure. they would travel in the middle of the road, unlike those getting stamped who were on the sidewalks on either side, and didnt get any extra attention from the police or whoever. i guess they had permanent work visas or something and did this often but it was very strange. then i noticed that behind the immigration buildings on either side, there was another sidewalk where many more people were crossing without processing. this was more insane because they were completely unmonitored. but none of them seemed hurried or worried about any problems so again i figured it was common practice. when we made it past the 'heavily fortified and intensely screened baggage check', we both saw a massive line of people on the argentinian side with huge sacks or boxes on their backs or nearby their person. it must have been half a mile long and coincidentally, when we crossed, the line started moving too. but they also werent getting processed. they were using the secret sidewalk behind the immigration station and this time, they did seem to be in a rush. literally it was like the start of a race. the first people, upon hearing the signal (probably that the guard had fallen asleep), picked up their things and dashed for the border. then the people behind them, feeling the freedom in front of them, also started galloping. as the people in the back of the line felt the movement, you could see the excitement grow and anticipation mount. we had no time nor resources to find out what the actual truth behind the situation was but i feel confident in my generalized assumption that these were illegal aliens making an unautherized entry into bolivia to peddle their wares on the black market or similar underground system. yep, that had to be the situation. in any case, it added more mystery and confusion to this already bumbled border crossing.

and then after the post last night, there was an incident well worth writing about. i was making my way home and i found david using another cafe much closer to our hostel. it turned out that i had walked an extremely long way unnecessarily but i probably could use the exercise. i waited with him to finish up and then we started towards home. we stopped into a convenient store and asked the gentleman behind the counter for a recommendation on popular liquors as we both appreciate tasting the local liquid cuisine. he handed us a dark colored something, recommended coke as a supplement, we thanked him, and were on our way. when we got back to our hostel around the corner, i began to have a lot of trouble with the key (this was before drinknig anything). i tried and tried and got frustrated by the problem. david suggested that i let a real man handle the situation and i said, ¨thats a good idea, do you see one around?¨. oh, i slay me. anyway, he had his turn and became equally frustrated. we must have tried for about 25 minutes and rang the doorbell about 10 times and we felt like complete idiots for not being able to open a door. (the key was quite foreign so its not like we had much experience with this type before so we thought perhaps we were doing something wrong. david pointed out that on the keychain there was a number to call and he commented that he had a feeling we would need to use that number earlier when he saw it. i thought that quite a convenient observation. regardless, we made use of the number and the woman on the other end promised to be there in 10 minutes. apparently it was the owner and she was at her home 10 minutes away. we waited outside for a while and in the meantime, another guest came up and tried the door. he also had trouble with the door and couldnt work it. we were relieved that we werent the only ones. the owners showed up with a whole host of keys and began to try each one. they too found the door a worthy foe and were also unable to fix the problem. they eventually brought in another man to help. we figured he was a locksmith but by the looks of him, he could very well have been just the local strong man. he tried the key, pushed on the door, and nothing happened. then he broke out his lock picking tools and again, nothing happened. finally he had to take off the door handle and the door swung open. this took about an hour and a half from the time we found the problem till the problem was solved. so we put down our stuff, sipped the local liquor, it tasted like bitten cough syrup, and ate a very late dinner at 1 am.

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