Salta and Jujuy (North of Argentina)

6 DAYS OF RELAXING IN SALTA

After our touring days in Tucuman, we decided to enjoy the beautiful colonial city of Salta for a bit.
Salta is one of the most populair tourist destinations in the Argentina. Luckily for us it was not completely swamped with tourists in February.

We enjoyed the terrific food: humitas (corn, fried onions, pumpkin and cheese wrapped in corn leaves), tamales (corn, meat, bolied egg and green onions wrapped in corn leaves) and of course more steaks!! This would be one of our last opportunities to have the fantastic Argentinian meat, before our boarder crossing to Bolivia, so we tucked in once more!!

Besides eating we walked a lot through the beautiful city and booked two excursions via a friendly English guy, who just opened his tourist agency.

CABALGATE
Horseback riding (Cabalgate) was always on the cards for me after Yvonne´s mountain-climbing-by-horse experience in Mendoza. So I truned into a gringo-gaucho too for 4 hours. To be completely honest, before heading off to South America, horse back riding was not my highest priority. But I did enjoy it. Horses listen to every little command you give them, which was very refreshing......... The route was not too difficult, so there was a change to some galopping! That was great!! After Yvonne´s moutain expedition and in true Gauchita style, she tried to give me instructions overruling the true Gauchos with lifetime experience ... ha ha... whatever!!!

CAFAYATE
The other tour we did was from Salta to Cafayate and back. Our only spanish speaking guide, Daniel, gave us loads of information about the scenery. The rock formations were absolutely spectaculair!
After lunch in Cafayate (loads of tourists here!), we were offered the change to do some wine tasting at one of Cafayate´s famous vineyards. Since we were wine experts by now we obviously could not refuse this.
After a stop over for ice cream, made of wine, we headed back to Salta.
The eight hours of non stop spanish was good practice for us, but quite intense.
The driver kept his eyes open thanks to the massive amount of coca leaves he was chewing on. He shared the experience with us. It tasted like tea and gives you the same kind of kick. Coca leaves are legal in the north of Argentina and very populair under the mostly indeginious population. It helps you to defeat hunger, thirst and sleep!
By the way, it takes kilo´s of coca leaves to make one gram of cocaine.

Daniel dropped us off at our hostal with the remaining part of his coca leaves supply.

JUJUY
It took us only 2 1/2 hours from Salta to Jujuy. Jujuy is the capital of the provence with the same name. It is the most northern part of Argentina, bordering Bolivia. Until the beginning of the 20-th century this region was part of Bolivia. You can really tell by the features of the locals. Very dark and indeginious looking, very different from the European looking people from Buenos Aires (porteños).

We arrived during siesta time (12.30 PM - 16.30 PM). This means that all the shops are closed and it is very difficult to find a place to eat. We finally did and had a delicious steak sandwich with fries (1 GBP...) in a Greek restaurant.

We used Jujuy to enjoy the last bit of our beloved Argentina and to prepare our trip to Bolivia. The last Saturday on Argentinian soil we went out for a few drinks. We went to bed at 7.30 AM....and suffering on our last day. When you´re craving fast food to cure a hangover, siesta time didn´t really go down well!!!

On Monday the 18th of February we took the bus to the border of Argentina and Bolivia: La Quiaca.
ADIOS ARGENTINA. IT HAS BEEN FANTSTIC!!

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