The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round and Round and Round! Mendoza - Salta

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We arrived in Salta after a 16 hour bus journey from Mendoza so we were pretty knackered. Our first day was spent exploring the city which seemed to have a very South American feel to it compared to the more European feel that the rest of Argentina emulated.

There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the main shopping street and the square was lined with an ornate cathedral, beautiful buildings and orange trees. The city came alive in the evening as alot of the buildings and churches were lit up with different coloured lights. On our first night we ventured to the outskirts of town in search of a parilla which we did not find but we did dine in a little restaurant owned by 2 doctors who ran it in the evening. We had a lovely night there and got to taste some South American delicacies including a soup that contained intestines (Nick said that is was calamari so I had a chew only to discover the truth a bit later, lovely!)

Salta was used as a base for visiting a couple of smaller towns that we had heard lots about, the first was a picturesque town called Cachi that was in the middle of nowhere, 4 hours from Salta. The bus journey was supposed to be scenic but due to the low lying fog, we did not get to see alot of it! As we neared Cachi the cloud lifted and we enjoyed views of the cactus infested dry scrubland. Cachi was a beautiful little town with white painted buildings and a pretty town square. We visited the cemetry on top of the hill next to the town, went to the local artisan shops where they sold some fab photo frames made out of cactus wood (the wood has holes in it where the spines used to be), hung around the square where we had our packed lunch (a street kid enjoyed the sandwich that we could not eat 😊) and mooched around the town. It was a really lovely day trip out despite the 8 hour round trip.

Our second trip was to a town called Iruya, a picturesque town, again in the middle of nowhere that can only be reached via a dirt track road following a gorge, 5 hours from Salta. The journey was pretty hairy scary to say the least as the bus driver, with their fur trimmed wheel and gear stick knob, made their way around the hairpin bends with sheer drops to one side. One girl on the bus could not look out of the window as it made her feel too scared, there were quite a few times when it felt we were going to drive over the edge of the road! Its amazing how along this route there are little towns that people live in considering they are so remote and hard to get to.

We arrived in one piece and were met by several children trying to sell their parents rooms as a place to stay. After dumping our stuff we had a look around town which did not take very long as it is very tiny to say the least, the donkeys on the street provided some excitement. The scenery was quite dramatic and condors could be seen from afar atop the sides of the gorge. We climbed up to the cross on top of the hillside that peered down onto the village, it was a nice warm suntrap so we chilled out there for a bit and took in the scenery. There is not much to do in Iruya so we only stayed one night (and it was bloody freezing) and made our way back on the 6am bus to Salta. You may as well get up early in Iruya anyway because as the bus leaves it honks its horn for a good five minutes to wake up the town.

We stayed for another night in Salta and enjoyed a fantastic Parilla (BBQ) meal at a local favourite restaurant that was packed to the rafters. Nick ordered pork chops only to be served a plate of 8 or so of them! He also got the recipe from the waitress for the Chimichurri, a sauce made with onion, chillis, garlic, and tomatoes - very tasty.

From Salta, we travelled north to Humachaca, a small stopover town enroute to Bolivia. The journey was another long one and we passed the mountain of 7 colours that was pretty. Humachaca was small but had a good artisan market where I bought some lovely jewellry from some hippies. We did not do too much there, just had a walk around and had some cheapo dinner....Bolivia here we come!

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Photos

The Mountain of 7 Colours
en route to Bolivia - not a bad photo considering it was taken on a wobbly bus

Cheese and Salami
He gave us lots to try