Tucuman and the Hitchhike.

We arrived in Tucuman, and what a horrible town it was. People told us it is apparently more beautiful than Córdoba. This i still had to find out, but when we arrived in Tucuman, we just went for some tea, then headed into town in search of some sort of beauty...
It was certainly very hard to find. The town was pretty dirty, markets, and just nothing nice around. We did eventually stmble across the pedestrianised part of the town, and it was quite pretty, but nothing in comparion to Salta and Cafeyate. No beautiful Plaza, so we just breakfasted in a funky little joint, where men didnt seem to have a problem with openly staring at us through the window as they passed! Also, some people in a shop got very excited when we went in beacuse we were white, and there were NO other tourists.. and were very friendly and polite.
We didnt feel the need to dwell in this town for very long, so we picked up our bags, and went to the bus terminal. The tickets to Córdoba were pretyextortionate.. 11pounds sterling, for a 9 hour bus ride! Ridiculus. As there were two of us we decided to take advantage of this and try and hitchhike for free.
We went to the petrol station and stood by the exit with our 'Cordoba o Santiago' sign and started to wait, on what we had found out was the road leading to those two places.
Having two beautiful Gringas stood on a corner certainly got us a lot of attention. Lots of people were looking at us from their cars but not stopping. We met two guys who said they were going tomorrow, and they would take us to dinner tonight etc, then we could all go tomorrow. We said if we were still there tomorrow we wuld take them up on their offer, but no thanks for now.
Some hippy guy with black teeth and really nasty nails came up to us, and invited us over to his tent which he had pitched next to the main road the night before, to smoke some marujana. Very nice offer, but again, we had to turn him down. We had work to do.
Then the kids from theother side of the street started whistling at us. Finally they had the guts to come over, but just stood round us in a ring and stared. Asked where we were from and carried on staring. This became a bit of a problem, as being surrounded by them all lessned our chances of being picked up. So I subtely tried to ask them if they should go back to work.... (they had been cleaning car windows at the traffic lights a few mins earlier..) but they said no, so Skye was direct and just told them to leave because they werent helpng us.
During this time the hippy guy had come back with a guitar and was earning money playing the guitar to people through their windows...
he came over again and tolx us, just as many other passers by had, that the bus terminal was 30m away,... and didnt understand how we managed to not have any money!
Then he told us we should buy some thread and make bracelts to sell, like all other hippys, then likfe would be easy... ha ha ha! Then he said he had to go back to work! HAHAHA! Playing guitar!
After about and hour and a half of waiting, the hippy whistled at us. Some guys driving the other way said they could take us to santiago. They looked ok, and said they would be back in a bit to pick us up.
They arrived about 45mins later... OMG they looked so sleazy. They were about 45 and smoking away and scary. Skye and I just looked at eachother... and thought.. we cant get in, this doent look safe... but then on the other hand, we had no other choice. So we jumped in. The guys then started driving, then all of a sudden turned the car around to drive in the opposite direction to Cordoba and Santiago. SHIT! both of us panicked. Skye tried not to show she was scared, so started asking if they had forgotten something- NO, then she asked why we were going this direction, we had been told santiago was the opposite way... they said. No it is this way.,..
We got quite worried, but they did then say they were going onto route 9.. (which is right) and luckily we soon saw signs for Cordoba. It turned out we had been stood in the right direction, but it was a new road, and these guys were from BA and had come in another way, and that was the way we were now leaving. These guys were quite nice. We were a bit weary, but we would only have to spend 2 hours in the car to santiago... then we could hitch with someone a bit more interesting. As we drove, we preactised our spanish a little, they were apparently detectives in the police force, but then they burst out laughing, so we thought they were lying... but that didnt really matter. Of course as they drove they drank maté all the way which cracked us up. We were chatting away about where was best to drop us off, and they decided to change their route slightly, and take us all the way to Cordoba. At the time we were a bit disappointed that our adventure was ending soon, but overall its a good thing, because its 900km to cordoba, and god knows how long we would be waiting for another ride.
These guys turned out to be quite comical. Driving through the countryside we just suddenly stopped. Jesus... it scared the life out of me and Skye.. we were in the middle of nowhere.. then the guy starts reversing and some kids run upto the car tryig to sell tortoises. This was so random. After this we kept stopping to ask for prices. When we asked why they wanted one, they said it was a present for their mother! Crazy! They also sold parrots and snakes along the street. This was very cool to see.. something we would have missed out on had we not hitchhiked.
Finally we stopped for a toilet break at the petrol station, and skye and I couldnt stop cracking up at how much Argentinians love drinking Maté. Everyone ran out their cars with thermos flasks for Maté, to fill up with hot water, then when we were driving, the guys had a screw-in metal heating rod for their thermos to keep their water warm! Its just hilarious. Even at the bus terminal they had a special machine dishing out hot water.
Anyway, we drove on to Córdoba, and at one point one of the guys says, 'please dont be scared, we have a gun, we will protect you!' - this was pretty freaky, as its not leagal to have guns round here... but we just decided to believe their police story. God knows who these people were, but if it was anything bad, we didnt want to upset them. And sure enough they pulled out their gun frm the glove compartment to show us. Also all the documentation to prove it was legal, but overall the guys were cool and dropped us off in Cordoba! We were pretty chuffed at the free ride! Whoo hoo! Gladly do it again!