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Published: March 6th 2013
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Plaza de mayo
Salta main Square When you get to Salta it is quite different from middle and south of Argentina. Here you see more of an influence from the indiginous people. The population is both of European and indigenous origin and a mixture of the two. Contrary to my ideas this is not so small a city sprawling in the valley between the mountains. There is a rope lift to the nearest hill (500m) from the central park. Once there you can see an overall view of the town. After checking in at the hotel went to see most of the parks and commercial areas of the town throwing in a church and a convent which were famous, the former for the ornate, almost all gold gaudy interior, the latter for the carved door and ornate doms. The favourite food here seems to be "empanadas", a pancake doubled over with different fillings inside. I particularly did not find them very appealing.
The second day here. As the bus to La Quica was late at night I decided to go to a ranch to see how the "Gouchos" lived. It was just a way of passing the time, but what an enjoyable surprice it was. David collected me
from the hotel and drove to his home 20km away. There was also a Swiss girl who was picked up for the trip. It took us well over 40 minutes to get there, a small village nestling in the valley consisting of 8-10 houses and a small church built in early 1600s by Jesuits. They even had a small church inside the house. We were joined with a swedish couple, a dutch couple and the Swedish girl who was travelling alone in South America. As we had similar plans we decided stick together for the next 4 days and split after Uyuni from where our plans differed. She spoke French, German and English and manage fairly well in Spanish. This was a great help for the next 4 days. After introductions we had a long barbecue (also vegiitarians were catered for), plenty of beer and wine.
After some relaxation we saddled up the horses, and started our trek into the hills. I was very apprehensive as I had no riding experience. The whole ride was through wooded forest through narrow tracks, in single file gong up the hills and down the hills. After about an hour we stopped to give some
Horses ready
Ride with the Gouchos Salta rest to the horses and mounted back and rode back to the house, which was mostly downhill. The whole ride was so enjoyable that I would not mind going back there again. I would recommend this to anybody travelling through Salta not to miss this "Riding with the Gouchos". At the end of the ride when we reached flatter, grassy area the horses had the freedom to go for a competative gallop. I presume it must be a routine for the hosrses. I managed the gallop quite well. The whole organisation of the ride gave us so much confidence that I would not mind try riding again.
There was long wait for the bus at 0030hrs. The bus reached La Quiaca (a border town for crossing into Bolivia) at 0830 hrs next morning. Two of us hired a car and headed to the border and customs. No problem with long ques at the Bolivian entry point, they just waved us on (a trick the border police played on us). As my passport was not stamped for entry I had to pay a penalty of ~25 dollers at exit to the check point staff on exit from Bolivia to Peru. We walked
Not as bad as I thought
Ride with the Gouchos, Salta up to bus station at Villazon (Bolivia). Here we were not sure whether to take a shared taxi or a bus to Tupiza. In the end we dcided to take the bus. The road to Tupiza was recently resurfaced and were in Tupiza in a couple of hours.
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