Salta

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Mariana Navarro is a bus station tout for a pair of hostels, Sol Huasi and Iskay Huasi. She approached me as I stepped off the bus and as she's bright, energetic, speaks great English and is so friendly she easily convinced me have a look at her hostels. I chose the second because it was quiet, airy and very clean.

Salta is a pleasant city of about 300 000 people set in a valley surrounded by the low foothills of the Andes. A central square with a big, ornate pink-and-cream cathedral. If you take the cable car to the top of of the hill overlooking the city you see below you the streets spreading out in a grid and the soccer field like a green postcard. It's a small city that you think at first is easy and laid back. Go to the nearby hills and you can visit wineries - Salta claims the world's highest vineyards - go horseback riding, mountain biking or bungee jumping. It's a place to eat regional specialities such as humitas (quinoa and corn flour wrapped in a corn husk and steamed) or sopa de mani, spicey peanut soup.

But it's not all bright and efficient, either. In front of banks you'll find long lineups of people waiting to get to a wicket, at some bus station offices they write out your ticket by hand, walk in the pedestrian shopping streets around rush hour and it seems the entire population is there, except for the ones caught in the traffic jams. Still, after BA, it's a nice place to unwind.

I poked around in the busy central market, looking at the clothes household goods, odds and ends, cheap junk and dined in the food court in the centre. Around me itinerant salesmen came by with flashlights, lighters, combs, perfume, a grizzled old man with a plastic bag full of broom heads slung over his back and a clown-faced guy selling balloons. I went to an art museum, took the cable car up the hill and just took it easy for a couple of days.

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Photos

Mariana
One of the world's friendliest, most helpful people.