Blogs from Salta, Salta, Argentina, South America - page 10

The journey to Salta was a long long one. We took another huge semi-cama buses from Asuncion all the way Resistencia where we had to change for another huge journey to Salta. The journey was smooth to the border. Here everyone had to get off the bus. What should have been a simple process of checking out of Paraguay and checking into Argentina was made over complicated by some young men who insisted on taking our bags and getting us to stand out of the queue. No English spoken. They seemed to keep wanting to move our gear one way and then another way. They kept speaking aimlessy in Spanish. One thing that is a bit sad to be said of your average South America, same as most people I guess, if they notice you only ... read more

La Casona del Molino is a Saltenos' pena. There's no tourist show here. As far as we could tell, we were the only non-locals in the place. It's in an old detached house in a quiet street. As we walked up the garden path to the steps, a puppy's head watched us round the partly-open door. In the first room, with red-washed rough plaster, the staff sat round one of the wooden tables, playing cards. There was an upright piano against the back wall. We'd been advised at the hotel to go into the room on the left. Here, the walls were painted blue and hung with with modern art. Beyond this we could see a yellow room, with tables lined up for a large group. We chose a corner table, unintentionally disturbing a thin ginger ... read more

Balcoce is the main street for penas, folk music venues. The hotel told us about an authentic local club that's further from the centre of town, but it's quiet during the week. It was recommended for Friday. We opted for the Panaderia de Chuna on Balcoce. It clearly expects tourists, but last night most of the non-Saltenos were from Argentina or Brazil. We were the only Brits. We know because the first singer asked where everyone was from and there was a round of enthusiastic clapping for each answer: Buenos Aires (applause), Rosario (applause), Londres (applause). There were several locals too. We took the opportunity to sample humitas, tamales and a local white wine, Torrontes. The entertainment opened with a set of Argentinian songs, all characteristically charged with emotion. Every lyric included the word "corazon". The ... read more

Disaster strikes....... Ok, so from Mendoza we umm..ed and ahh..ed whether to cross to Santiago (Chile – the country not the weather! ) or head up north in Argentina and investigate more wine regions.......and so we headed north h!!! First stop was Tucuman – to be honest not too much to write home about, but I needed a break as we had been on a bus for 14 hours and I wanted to catch a glimpse of the royal wedding......I know the worst republican ever, but I wanted to check out the dress!!! Anyway this place had a nice central square and we even saw some protests going on, we then headed north again to the quaint (and my favourite spot so far in s America) little village of Cafayate. It is total wine country and ... read more

Desde Rio de Janeiro volamos a las Cataratas del Iguazu, que hacen frontera entre Argentina y Brasil, y 1 km, rio arriba se une con el rio Parana donde se unen las fronteras de Brasil, Argentina y Paraguay, en un triangulo (ver video) Las Cataratas se pueden visitar del lado argentino o del lado Brasileño. Nosotros decidimos cruzar la frontera a Argentina y nos pareció mucho mejor una vez visto desde este lado, porque ves dos zonas de Cataratas. El recorrido por el parque nacional es de 8 horas, mientras que en Brasil son 3h. Hay un paseo en lancha debajo de las cataratas (te meten debajo de una practicamente, salimos chorreando de agua) y te permite ver la "boca del infierno" desde una pasarela practicamente encima (VER VIDEO). Esto ultimo es indescriptible, parece que el ... read more