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Published: March 14th 2006
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Gente Photo - I did this exact thing
That is Diego, and some famous chef from Arg, potrayed in magazine Gente (like People in US) Arrived by bus from Mendoza on or about Feb 8 on a warm day. Salta scenery looks dry, stark, but it rained nearly the entire time I was there. No longer charmed by colonial architecture, especially in the funk of bad weather, I decided to book excursions for each day I was there.
I thought I'd be able to do mountain biking in Salta, but they weren't really pushing them. Instead, I first did the southern scenery, van-ride tour, culminating in a bodega stop (winery) for tasting. Sure the scenery was lovely in its colorful, desert way, but I was not so into it. I did talk to some nice girls- one was only 18 and traveling as I was, but she had a decidedly different bend towards all she did and saw. The other was Israeli and very nice. Guide was cool. The bodega was nothing special- they served us wine in plastic cups! I was cheesed out by the stops to take photos of scenery, and especially by the stop to take endless photos with two llamas on the side of the road propped there for just that purpose!
Next day I had thankfully booked something more
active— white water rafting again. Another 2-hour van ride (pleasant though, ipod music and thoughts whirring through my head contented me) took us past an enormous man-made lake to the other side of the dam. As in Mendoza, I immediately felt happy in the atmosphere of the white water rafting “camp”—these river guys have a blast and everyone around them can’t help but be infected. It was beautiful and green too, not like general Salta (colorful desert). It was rainy-ish, but remarkably it cleared up on the river, thank God, b/c rafting in the rain is not so fun. To make up for lack of real action in the white water, our guides staged deliberate boat flips and such, and it was actually pretty entertaining. Again, the boat guide and I hit it off, and he was fun to chill with later back at the camp. This time I did learn commands in Castellano (Spanish) as our boat was truly bilingual.
I wanted more to stay at the river camp than to return to the rainy city, but I had booked another tour for the next day and thus headed back. I went out to the hip bar than
night to meet rafting compatriots, but talked to the wee hours to a really sweet, cool girl from UK who looked like Gwenyth Paltro. We patiently dealt with not entirely unwelcome attention from Argentine men as we talked way too much about life back home…
Tour next day was endless and boring and so not worth the money. For the entire day I napped in the front seat with the driver and plotted how I would return to the river for my final two days in Salta…
I did return to the river. Diego (rafting guide) welcomed me and assumed I was back for the Canopy tour I didn’t get to do due to rain the previous visit. I had also arranged for a bike to be delivered to me the next day and made arrangements to stay in the hostel that night. After a hike, I did do the aforementioned canopy thingy with 9 Kiwis (dudes from New Zealand- very boisterous, almost crude, but very fun and funny), Diego and another guide. I’ve seen canopy adventure tours in jungles before (bet that is why its called canopy- for the jungle canopy)- you go from tree to tree
suspended on a cable- and I thought they looked cheesy. But this deal demanded really cool treks to get up to the high points in the canyon from which to launch, and really long, high, exhilarating flights criss-crossing, not from tree to tree, but across canyons with water far below. There were 9 legs in all. I didn’t know until later that this very activity was highlighted in "Gente", the People magazine of Argentina, when a famous chef came to have an adventure vacation on the lake and river. I bought the mag which contains a picture of Diego taking this very chef across one of the canopy legs in a “superman” flight and I did the very same with him. I should take a picture of the mag picture and post it in my blog…
Fun times later that night as I was welcomed into the Salta rafting family fold and had dinner with the “locals”…I saw the biggest toads I’d ever seen and wish I’d taken pics! They were the size of bowling balls and I am not kidding! I did get my bike the next day and had a wonderful ride around the dam to the
Cactus Cemetery
I must have been awake to take this picture... lake, etc… then back to the city for one final night.
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