that's why i come up here: NATURE

It's official, we are living in an episode of Planet Earth.

Whenever I think about being "one with nature," I think about 5th grade camp, when we were forced to hike around in the rain, shower in bathrooms with mud on the floor and then sleep on plastic mattresses in damp cabins. Can you really blame a girl for preferring the indoors after traumatic experiences like "the solo forest walk" during the rainy season at OPI? Well here's a fun newsflash: when you get to be warm, being outside is the business!

Outside of Salta, San Lorenzo is a little hidden gem in the mountains and currently frontrunner for the place I most want to buy property abroad. We gathered up Urux and this Belgian kid on a hike into the forest* and along with our little nature walk came the following bonuses: a baby cow (calf, some might say) running rampant and a zipline across the valley, with a view of Salta in the middle. Zero complaints.

After bussing into Jujuy and suffering from mild heatstroke, I would have done anything to get off the sidewalk and next to a tree. Instead we found tiny little Purmamarca, town of the Siete Colores, a mountain range that actually DOES have seven colors of rock blended into it like a layer cake *whisper* from heaven. The wind whipped through the narrow streets and we had to turn our backs and scrunch our eyes shut against the miniature sandstorms as they stung the backs of our legs and settled between our molars. The Siete Colores hike involved a herd of rams and sheep noisily tumbling down the mountain as we made our way up and a lot of feeling very small and incredulous at the world. I could really get used to this whole "nature" thing if this keeps up.

*Real story: Urux dragged us into the woods. We whined about wearing flipflops in snake territory for the first five minutes, then left the boys in the dust.

PHOTOS TO COME LATER! The internet doesn't work when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere.