Piropos

    One nice thing about traveling lately is that I've noticed less piropos in places other than Mendoza. Piropos are "compliments," but refer to the catcalls that us foreign girls attract every time we walk down the street. The majority of the piropos are harmless whistels, honks, and kissy noises, and usually from passing drivers, construction workers, and groups of guys on the street. The construction workers like to yell "hey baby!" and "chica" and things like "hermosa, que linda!" (how beautiful). The bad piropos come from the guys who I'm pretty sure are repeating what they've seen in R rated movies or probably pornos.
     I always subconsciously look towards the piropos, even though the best thing to do is just ignore them. I think they are funny at times and start smiling, even though I shouldn't be encouraging it. Some of my other friends have gotten really annoyed with them, but I normally just tune them out nowadays.
    The best piropos are those we get when we've just gotten off a 20 hour bus ride, haven't showered, haven't brushed our hair, are covered in bug bites, and still get cat calls thrown at us. My favorite story was from my friend who said she got some piropos while sitting in the bus terminal stuffing her face with doughnuts.
    The piropos are more common in the bigger cities. It was nice escaping them while traveling to some smaller towns these past couple weeks.