Day 23: Salta

I am sitting in a cafe on Salta's main square waiting for a museum to open next door. We hop a bus for northern chile this afternoon so it might be my last opportunity for a few days to post on here. Salta seems like a nice town. Sadly I think some of the best sight seeing is outside of the city and besides the bus trip, I won't get to see much of this. The trip here was quite nice. The national aeroparque in Bs As was very nice...exceptionally nice. In fact, it was one of the nicer air ports I have had the pleasure of traveling through. The flight was nice and I easily caught a cab into the city. My Hostel did not have Wi Fi which was a disappointment but I did meet a very nice French couple in the kitchen who made me dinner and told me all about their country.

Oh....I almost to tell about our last night in Bs As. We went back to Palermo where we hit up what was supposedly Bs As best restaurant. They served us champagne while we waited for our table. We ordered a nice bottle of wine, an appetizer of sausage and cheese with two of their best cuts of meat for the entree's. This was the Argentine meal I had been looking for. The steak was fantastic and plentiful. I ordered a cut of tenderloin which ended up being the equivalent of 4 fillet mingnon's in the states and the beef was exceptional. We had one of the best dinners in Bs As for the US dollar amount of about $30 per person...hard to beat that. We dined until about 1am, then walked to what turned out to be a very local bar for another drink on an upstairs patio then headed to club 69 around 2 am. The girls had talked me into this club...their main hook was that on Thursdays its Transvestite night...thats right, guys that dress up as girls. The crowd seemed to be mostly straight but the folks who were part of the club gig were easy to spot...one of them touched me with a sweeping graze of their hand while making a peace sign across my chest...I felt dirty the rest of the night. They had one large stage where there was lots of transvestite dancing (they had adopted a 60's decor with peace signs and bright colors) plus some break dancing and they had a stage on wheels that they kept dragging through the middle of the dance floor while transvestites danced on a pole...oh yeah...they were all wearing clothes....I got home around 4 and still made it to my 9:00 final lesson at school which ended up being a private lesson because as I awoke my friend from her slumber around 8:15 she not only answered the door but bolted out of it while mumbling...I think I'm going to be sick.

So, we still have to solidify out plan today but I think the rough out is to catch a 13 hour bus to San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, stay there one night, then bus it to Bolivia to Uniou where we will see the salt flats for a day then to Potosi then finally to Sucre, hopefully by Wednesday night.

Those of you keeping up with my blog don't need to read further, this is just a rant that I want to be searchable on google and through the blog site to inform people about the first school I chose in Bs As...many folks sign up for this school and pay their tuition in advance and then get trapped. I going to list a bunch of key words and spill my review of the school.

Language school review in Buenos Aires, COINED review, Spanish Schools in Buenos Aires, ELEBAIRES, spanish teachers, spanish school review, COINED spanish classes, COINED school review

The first school I started at in Buenos Aires was COINED. It was easy to find and in a good location. The staff seemed nice and the school was in a good location. They walked me through the school description, classes have a max of 8 students and average 3-4, 4 hours of classes per day etc etc. I want to be fair and say that the school facilities as well as their accomodations were very nice. The teachers were also nice and very good. However now for the bad things about COINED. First off, classes start about 10-15 minutes late, the 20 minute break goes for about 30 minutes and classes end 5-10 minutes early. Plus the teachers tend to spend about 1/2 per day on cultural stuff like playing Tango music. So, your 4 hours of classes are more like 3 hours. Second, my class was packed with 8 students..the max and I had very little opportunity to actually speak and was not learning very quickly. Plus a lot of the students speak portugues from Brazil and are still considered beginners but they are on a whole different level. The books were not very good and most of the work we did was on photocopied papers. We also had a holiday week for my second week where the school was closed on Friday. They advertise their classes as 20 classes per week for a set price. However on these holiday weeks, they charge the same price and do not allow you a rebate or the opportunity to make up the missed day. basically charging the same price for 16 classes that should have been 20. Plus, when they charge you, they don't set their prices in pesos, they set it in USD's, then convert the price to Peso's (at an exchange rate that was ALWAYS about 3% higher than the actual rate) and charge you in Peso's...i felt this was a rip off b/c the dollar has been continually strengthening. The worst part is that I talked to the staff about all of these things and the basic conclusion that I reached was that after the school has you signed up (they charge a $65 sign up fee) they don't care. They kept pointing to the fine print in their contract. They could care less about the learning experience, they only wanted to be paid and to maximize their profits. I watched one of the staff, yell at other students...the student said I don't think you understand customer service, the staff replied "I know customer service, I worked in the states for 5 years." I then spoke up and said "In the states the customer is always right." Anyway, they didn't care. They don't want you to learn because they want you to keep getting classes. Our new school ELEBaires did not charge a sign up fee, they discount holiday weeks, they charged us about half as much and I had semi-private lessons (2 students, 1 teacher) for 2 hours a day. The staff was so much nicer and instead of asking us everyday about payments, they asked us about what we learned. To anyone looking for schools, pick one that cares about the learning experience first. Just like we say in the states, if you take care of the customer, in the end your business will succeed.

Off to Bolivia and Chile, Pierce