Blogs from Salta, Argentina, South America - page 66

After all that hard trekking Angus and I decided to see some of the country by car. We did a four day road trip in NorthWest Argentina, starting in Tucumen and heading further North towards Salta. It turned out to be a great way to explore a beautiful area, and we met some other travellers doing the same. The first day we drove up high on a mountain road through hot tropical rain forest. After the desert landscape of San Juan, it was a refreshing change of scenery. The trees went very high and there were hundreds of different species of butterflies. We visited the ruins of Quilmes. These are 1000 years old, where the native Quilmes people lived and defended themselves from the Incas and then the Spanish. The museum was full of pots and ... read more

Leaving Asuncion in Paraguay we are headed for Salta in northern Argentina. A midmorning bus from Asuncion and another lengthy border crossing (made worse by immigration officials trying to get me off the bus and alone to coerce me into paying them a tip for stamping our passports, us being the only gringos on the bus and Paraguay being bribe hungry), followed by another luggage search five miles into Argentina, gets us to Resistencia, where Claire runs to get us onto the bus to Salta that should have left 5 minutes before. This she does and we get straight onto the overnight bus, pleased with ourselves at having made the connection and not having to stay in Resistencia, but realizing another night bus lies ahead without a gap to wash our faces or eat dinner. In ... read more

there were more people in the birthday then it looks i just dont have the enerey to upload them all, so don´t think it was a crappy birthday! we also had ballons... and ofcourse dodo zar... :) the batteries in my camera ran out... so soon there will be more!... read more

English Our south-American trip is getting into its more difficult part, we have left the easy-going and almost-European Argentina and crossed the border to Bolivia, from where we are writing now. Hence, this blog is meant to be a farewell message to the Argentineans and the Chileans and their wonderful countries. We still have to digest the overwhelming load of experiences we are taking with us after a month and a half. Astonishingly different landscapes have passed in front of our eyes, from the emptiness of Patagonia to the dried altopianos of the north. We have met a multitude of people from everywhere, some really exceptional, some others not. Among the last group, if by chance we find those bastards which stole Chiara's wallet in Mendoza... Getting drunk and stolen in Mendoza After Valparaiso, we left ... read more

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 ... read more