Small Shelly Fauna

They’ve All Come To Look For (South) America

And so San Juan has been left behind, like so many empty Fanta bottles in a residency hall bathroom. Now, following a most lengthy bus ride, I’ve arrived in San Miguel de Tucumán (the Dirty Took), cultural center of Argentina’s Andean northwest and, uh, apparently where they have empanadas with raisins in them. Some words regarding my travels here are due, for this was one bus ride I’ll not soon forget. A preface: I have thus far been greatly disappointed by the Argentinian wildlife. South America, right? Should be amazing animals out the wazoo, and yet all I’ve seen is pigeon after pigeon after pigeon and mangy stray dogs. But change is in the air…literally. So I’m on the bus, traveling through the arid mountains of northwestern Argentina, looking out the window, and I see a bird soaring up ahead. At first I thought it was a turkey vulture (which range throughout the Americas), but then I notice that the wing patterning is wrong (No bear did this!) Then, as the bus gets closer, I notice that it’s too big to be a turkey vulture, much too big (That’s no moon…) Which is to say, what we have here is a genuine Andean condor in its natural habitat. Let me state that once more, for the record: condor. Giant. Giant condor. From the Andes. Deal with it. Although this scavenging leviathan of the skies was doubtles the highlight of the trip, the rest was by no means unengaging, with ever-shifting landscapes and fascinating mountain villages. And, towards the end, harrowing excitement! Yes, it was in the most mountainous leg of the journey, on a steep and twisty road between a sheer rock face and a dizzying plummet, when I start to notice that every other rock has a cross on it, and there seem to be an unusual number of little stone structures with lit candles in them, and wait a minute, those are all for people killed in accidents on this very pass, aren’t they, and this road is only one car wide, yet there’s oncoming traffic and the bus is very large and heyyyy, whoa there, semi trying to pass, getting a little close to the edge there. Needless to say we got through unscathed, but it certainly was a wild ride.