Gaucho style in Northern Argentina

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The bus ride from San Pedro to Salta in Argentina was fantastic. We traversed a pass nearly 5,000m above sea level and descended nearly 3,000m down a steep, windy road which offered great views. Salta is the biggest city in northern Argentina and I decided I hadn’t quite eaten enough steaks just yet. I also spent a day on horseback traipsing some typical gaucho country. I wasn't previously a huge fan of horse-riding considering my family owned a pony as a kid which I rode maybe 5 times in 12 years, but I was actually pleasantly surprised how much fun I had. The horses make the same trek every day so they know exactly where to go and operate on auto-pilot. If you try to make them do something different to what they normally do they just ignore you. ie. The guide tells you to keep a one-metre gap to the horse in front but the horse just ignores your pulling on the reins and continues forward with their head up the next horse’s arse anyway. You soon just give up and go with it.

The most interesting part was the final section when you emerge from the hills back into the farm. This is another auto-pilot section where the horses have been trained to gallop the last stretch through a small river and back to the yard. Even if you don’t want to gallop you have no choice but to grasp the reins with white knuckles and hang on for dear life. The first gallop was admittedly scary, but the guide asked if anyone wanted another. Surprisingly I found myself going back for more galloping and even more surprisingly realised I was kicking the horse to go faster as we started racing each other. Somehow my competitive nature overrode my fear and though I was scared, at the same time I had a huge smile on my face. I never knew horse-riding could be so adrenalin-filled.

By the end I was still happy to get off and escape with my bones intact and we sat down to a nice asado barbeque. A good day out!

After Salta I ventured a few hours north into the Jujuy region. I met up with Juli, a friend of my mate Drouyn who lived in the area. It’s not really a touristy area so it was very nice to experience a place from a local’s perspective. I ended up staying longer than I planned, making friends, taking time to chill out, recharge the batteries and break from the backpacking scene. One evening we spent on a friend’s farm where we gorged ourselves on home-made empanadas (mine didn’t turn out too badly) and an asado of two whole goats.

There were still some nice areas to explore as Jujuy is located in a picturesque valley stretching most of the way up to Bolivia. We visited a festival in a small community and ate some local dishes such as Humitas (corn-based bread wrapped in corn husks), Tamales (corn-flour pastry filled with meat), and Locro (corn-based stew). Corn is popular surprisingly and all three were delicious and cheap.

Almost reluctantly I decided to don the heavy backpack, re-join the gringo trail and head up into Bolivia where further adventures awaited.

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