Day tripping in Salta

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We arrived in Salta early in the morning after another night bus. We got a taxi to the hostel we´d booked only to discover that there had been another mix up with our reservation and there were no double rooms available. Luckily they had another hostel in town with space, they let us have a nap in one of their dorms for a couple of hours until the room at the other hostel was ready and then paid for our taxi there.

After finally getting our double room we dropped our bags and went for an explore of the city. Salta is 1150 meters above sea level at the foothills the Andes and is surrounded by hills. Its a stunning setting, sunny, green and very tranquil. We headed to the main plaza which is surrounded by beautiful old buildings, most of which have nice restaurants on the ground floor which spill out onto the pavements and at one end is a huge pink Cathedral. We had some breakfast and were entertained by an indigenous band playing in the street. We looked through the flyers we´d been handed on our way into the centre by the dozens of tour operators offering various day trips in to the surrounding areas. We decided we would do three trips, Cafayate, Cachi and Humahuaca.

That evening we opted to eat at the hostel BBQ. It consisted of the usual cheap meat and salad combo but also included "all you can drink" wine which was a bonus. Of course the wine was not the best, we found the same wine they were plying us with in the supermarket the next day for fifty pence a bottle, but after a few glasses it started to taste fairly palatable. There were about ten of us at the table one of whom was an American called Drew who decided to show Lil how to arm wrestle like a pro, very useful tips! We all decided to head to a bar around the corner for some more drinks and we stumbled to bed some time later.

The next two days we spent sauntering around the city, eating breakfast on the plaza and generally being lazy. We went to see Batman at the cinema one evening which felt very homely.

Cafayate

We got up very early on our forth day, about 7.00 am, to be picked up for our first day trip to Cafayate. It was at this point we discovered that our hostel was in the part of town where all the transvestites and prostitutes hang out, they were just finishing up for the night as we were waiting to be picked up.

The first stop on the tour was at a goat farm where they make cheese, the cheese is special because the goats have been brought in from Switzerland, apparently their milk is better. We sampled some cheese, had a drink and then set off on the main part of trip which was a stunning drive through a valley of red rock. The tour guide stopped loads so we could take pictures, it really was beautiful and the mountains seemed to go on forever.

Cafayate has a micro-climate perfect for growing grapes so when we arrived in the town the first stop was to a winery for a tour and wine tasting. Of course we had to first smell the wine and swill it around in our glass whilst nodding politely as they described the fruit fusions. It was delicious. Next we went into the town itself and had lunch and a potter around the main Plaza. Lil bought an indigenous flute/recorder instrument as everywhere we go they seem to be playing them and they sound lovely.

The drive back to Salta from Cafayate was just as beautiful as on the way there and we stopped at a dried up waterfall, it was huge and our guide told us that for one week each year they hold an indigenous music festival there as the size and shape of it makes a perfect amplitheatre. There was a man playing his recorder when we arrived, it sounded really haunting, Lil wanted to get hers out and join in but I stopped her.

Cachi

After another day off just pottering around (two days in a row of getting up at 7am, no thank you!) it was time for tour of North West Argentina number two. After being picked up in darkness, avoiding the transvestites, we set off on a similar road we took to Cafayate. This time we were the only gringo's on the tour so the guide had to say everything twice just for us, our Spanish is improving but still isn't excellent.

More mountains and stunning scenery followed, the drive this time took us up some huge mountains along windy roads to about 4000 metres above sea level. We stopped a couple of times on the way up to take in the panoramic views of the mountains and valley below. Once we had reached the top of the mountain we took an enormous, completely straight road the rest of the way to Cachi, this road had been built by the Incas and was decorated on either side with miles of cacti stretching out towards the hills. Cactus wood is commonly used in Northern Argentina, the cactus has to have been dead for at least three years though before you can use it. There's something you never knew.

Cachi is a really pretty little town. We stopped for lunch and ate some empanadas in the Plaza which were made fresh in front of us. After an hour of eating and pottering we set off back to Salta with a couple of stops on the way. The first was at the cacti that we had seen on the way there, our guide showed us the tallest one of them all, 9 metres high. They grow at a rate of about 2-4 cm a year so this one was ancient, you do the maths.

The last stop was just a toilet break but we thought we should mention it as we met a really friendly cat.

The next day we organised our next move which was to cross the border, get into Bolivia and then to a town called Uyuni which is the base for the Salt Flat tours. The agency who had booked our tours around Salta offered a package that took us through a Northern Argentinian town called Humahuaca which was meant to be worth seeing, a stop overnight there then on a bus to the border town where we were to be met by a man named Freddie Fernandez who would help us with the border crossing and then give us tickets for the train to Uyuni. They recommend the train as the 'road' between the border town and Uyuni is famously bad, not to mention the state of the buses that dare to drive it.

We paid over the odds for the package mainly because it ensured we'd arrive in Uyuni alive.

On our final night in Salta we went to a folk club on the other side of town. The musicians go round the tables and give you a personal show. Unfortunately the place was quite big so they never got round to our table. Oh well.

Humahuaca

We said goodbye to Salta and set off on another stunning drive to this lovely little town in the Jujuy Province. The scenery was spectacular and we went past the mountain of seven colours which was illuminated by the morning sunshine. We then drove through some of the mountains, these were all formed from the same mineral which made them a bright copper colour and their formation looked like the surface of the moon.

We then made our first stop in a tiny village set in the mountains, there was a market there and we started to get itchy wallets looking through all the alpaca wool goodies, a few scarf and leg warmer purchases later we set off again. Our next stop was at the Tropic of Capricorn where we crossed into the sub-tropics. There was a big stone sun dial identifying it's location.

We then arrived in Humahuaca, we had a look around the main Plaza which sits below a huge statue and monument of a man in a running position, apparently he was a messenger who ran between towns in Argentina. The monument is set at the top of about four flights of stone stairs and towers over the town. We went for lunch at a place that had an indigenous band playing which was really cool and we both had Llama steak with mash potato, we thought we should give it a try and it was really tasty.

Our next task was to find a bed for the night, our guide had been really lovely all day and even drove us around until we found a good hostel. We said goodbye to our guide and tour group who set off back to Salta. We then went to the bus station to organise our bus to La Quiaca where we would cross the border to Bolivia the next day. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Pinocchio's and got an early night.

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