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Published: October 11th 2012
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Sadly, we left our month long Bolivian home behind to find literally greener pastures. The road from the Salar led us into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile whereby we stayed one night. San Pedro is an oasis created to cater to transiting tourist. The town is attractive, resembling New Mexico with low slung adobe homes and dusty streets. Unfortunately it's overpriced and touristy but serves its purpose as a rest stop before moving on to Argentina or points further south in Chile. We bought our bus tickets to Salta, Argentina, an 11 hour journey for $63 per person and looked forward to Argentine wines, beef and tango culture. The bus ride from San Pedro to Salta is simply spectacular. The road descends thousands of feet, winding its way from the arid altiplano through fog shrouded steep hills to the fertile valleys of Northwestern Argentina. We left the desert behind for trees, rivers, roadside farms and wineries. It was a pleasurable change of scenery.
Salta was a nice start to our Argentina experience. The city is easy to walk, with good restaurants, attractive colonial buildings, happening markets and plenty of shops. We ate excellent salami, cheese and ham sandwiches,
extra long hot dogs, rich ice cream and desserts all within the central plaza, and all reasonably priced. But the show stopper of Salta was the beef. One night Amei and I wondered the streets and without planning found a typical Argentinian steak house with a conspicuous grill, congenial waiters and cheap prices. Without much prompting, we chose tenderloin for two and a bottle of red wine. What appeared quite quickly was probably the most tender, delicious mouth watering piece of beef our palates have enjoyed in years. The slab of meat was large, which the waiter demonstrated its tenderness by deftly cutting it with a spoon. Each bite had me convinced Argentinian gauchos had their groove, creating meaty masterpieces for carnivores. And all for $23 for two. From that meal on, Salta will be forever remembered not for its colonial past and nice buildings, but its wonderful wonderful red meat.
Moving right along before my cholesterol reached absurd levels, we hopped on a 25 hour bus ride to visit one of the worlds natural wonders, Iguazu Falls. We thought we were lucky to have front row seats on the upper deck of our comfortable bus. The
seats afforded us almost a 180 degree field of vision of a beautiful countryside, a nice bonus for a long ride. However, nature intruded our enjoyment with darkening skies, nearby lightening strikes while launching frightening volleys of hail the size of large stones at our windshield. Fearful the large pane of glass was about to break, we held blankets up to our faces in a cowardly attempt to protect ourselves from splaying glass. Luckily the glass held, our nerves didn't but the red wine served on board sure helped ease our anxiety. It was an exciting ride to say the least.
Iguazu Falls is that once in a lifetime place to visit. The park is large, which requires long walks through humid jungle but all well worth it. Butterflies and birds abound, large lizards lounge around, ugly coatis creep through the bush, but all eyes eventually focus on the magnificent, wondrous and powerful pull of the falls. Up close, its unbelievable the amount and volume of water pouring over the falls. Wherever you look, water rusher over ledges, pouring onto rocks below until billowing up into fine and refreshing mist. Remove all the visitors, and you have
a Garden of Eden, dazzling displays of cascades spewing forth from the leafy green jungle. The National Park Service has done a brilliant job by staffing the park with friendly personnel to help in providing information , building foot paths to view the Falls from all angles and keeping prices reasonable for such a world wonder. Compliments to Mother Nature and Argentina. Next stop Buenos Aires.
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