Cafayate, Argentina - Day 4

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Happy Easter! What a beautiful day to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection in Cafayate, Argentina. I woke up early this morning to get things ready before the kids woke up for the day. Aden bounded up the stairs around 7:00am, excited to see what the Easter Bunny had brought him. He’s been talking for weeks about what his Easter basket might look like while traveling in Argentina, and I reminded him each time that things may be different than he imagined because we’re not at home in Wisconsin. “I just know the Easter Bunny will come to Argentina,” he’d remind me, excitedly.

About 80% of Argentinians are Christians with most following the Catholic religion. There’s usually a main cathedral in every town, but we haven’t seen a lot of other denominational churches in our travels throughout the country. Argentines don’t seem to have the same Easter traditions as we’re used to either — no Easter Bunny, holiday-themed candy or baskets, or community egg hunts. In fact, there’s really no mention of the Easter holiday at all except for the sale of giant Kinder Joy eggs wrapped in cellophane packaging at the grocery stores.

Fortunately, the Easter Bunny brought Tory and Aden each one of those Kinder Joy eggs, as well as boxes of their favorite Krestos cheesy crackers, knitted stuffed animals, and cans of silly string. When Tory woke up around 8:00am, the kids ripped into their Kinder Joy chocolate eggs and found a surprise toy inside. They were both really excited.

Andi made us a nice Easter breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, toast with strawberry jam, roasted sweet potatoes, and watermelon for breakfast. The four of us ate breakfast together, and then watched the online Easter broadcast from our home church in Wisconsin. Tory and Aden never seem to have very good attention spans watching church online, so we had to pause the service a few times to remind the kids to stop talking and burying themselves in pillows. That was a little frustrating, but I also understand it’s a long time to sit still, listen, and participate in a service when you’re not there in person.

After church, the four of us drove north to the Quebrada de Las Conchas Reserve to hike the trail we skipped on our way into Cafayate the other day. The Los Estratos trail is a short, 30-minute out-and-back hike walking through the desert valley. It was a pretty boring trail as far as hikes go — straight path without a lot of obstacles or elevation change — but it followed the colorful red mountains with some pretty views. By 1:00pm, it was 80 degrees outside which felt even hotter under the open sun. In that regard, having an “easy” trail was beneficial because we didn’t have to work too hard.

It seems like one member of our family is disagreeable on every hike we do together. Today, it was Aden — he didn’t want to hike and squatted down in the dirt like a dog on a leash refusing to walk any further. With some coaxing, I finally got Aden walking again and then Andi distracted him from walking by asking Aden to collect small sticks for our BBQ later this afternoon. That seemed to do the trick. Usually, it’s Tory who complains on family hikes, but today she happily walked along the trail with Andi. Go figure.

Our car was about a million and a half degrees after we finished our hike, so Andi stopped at a roadside stand to let the car run for a bit while we bought some cold drinks. We also picked up some dried chimichurri spices from the little tienda. Argentina is known for its chimichurri which they serve with grilled meats. I could honestly eat it on anything! It’s delicious.

Back at our airbnb, Andi set to work on starting a fire on the outdoor asado BBQ. He used a mixture of wood and charcoal to get the fire nice and hot, and then grilled us steak, chicken, chorizo sausage, and bell peppers for our Easter lunch. We ate our big feast with steamed green beans and our homemade chimichurri sauce.

After lunch, the four of us decided to go into Downtown Cafayate to walk around. Surprisingly, there were more businesses open that we expected. Every restaurant was open, including the ice cream shops, so we stopped into Grido to buy a kilo to-go. Then, we took some time to walk around the town square and enjoy the warm evening.

The remainder of our Easter was spent at our airbnb, relaxing and watching TV. We warmed up leftovers for dinner and Andi and I watched a few episodes of Ted Lasso while the kids talked to their friends on FaceTime. It’s neat to think about all the places we’ve celebrated Easter over the years. It’s bittersweet not making memories at home with family, but it’s also fun to witness customs and traditions in other parts of the world & Andi and I do our best to make holidays special for our family no matter where we are.

Easter in Argentina — it was a good one!