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Published: July 13th 2006
We left Posados to head for Salta and the terrain quickly changed from the sub-tropical jungle that to very boring chaco grasslands which went to the horizon in every direction. This bus trip was particularly great - we managed to see around 6 or 7 different films, unfortunately only the first half hour though, this being about as long as it took for the conductor to get bored and change his choice. We were also an hour an a half late for one of our connections, it was uncomfortable and we had a relay of crying babies so that one took up the torch as soon as another stopped, between them covering the whole journey. Luckily we were befriended by a middle-aged Argentine couple sat next to us who after we´d struggled through the usual questions in Spanglish decided we were their responsibility and followed us off the bus to make sure everything was sorted for us and that our luggage was being properly looked after.
We arrived in Salta at 7am and stumbled into our hostel (Backpackers) - which immediately gained an raised eybrow from David for what he thought were rather self congratlatory signs proclaiming everywhere that it
Steak BBQ
The obligatory steak photo.was impossible to check out - infact it only took us three attempts to leave, and we weren´t really trying the first two. The staff immediately put us down for their Assado (traditional Argentine barbeque) that evening and after a quick chat with some of our new roomates we headed to the San Bernado mountain which looks over the city (The city is 1200m high in the Andes) which we lazily took the cable car up. The view from the top is great and you can see the whole place laided out in the valley below. Salta itself doesn´t feel like the large city it is, more like a load of small towns that have joined together. The people here are a lot more Bolivian to look at compared to the European look of people in BA and are rather more friendly aswell - inversely there seems to be a small army of street cleaners which makes the city itself feel like it´s some European town in the Alps. We took the 1000 steps down the moutain as we were too cheap to pay for the cable car down, and went for a beer.
The main Plazza in Salta
Big bottle for a little man
I´m sure there´s more in there somewhere. is small but imaculate with large green leafy trees and decent green grass (Very hard to find decent grass, and when we do, being English, we appreciate it) surrounded by typical colonial building which host the more expensive hotels and good cafes at their base. They were selling ice cream for 2 pesos, which was far two expensive, so we opted for a halfhour search, sunstroke and a 1 peso ice cream instead (Saving around 20p).
The hostel was buzzing with British people, Salta being one of the places every random backpacker in South America decides to go to, but is so small that everyone ends up in the same place. We also bumped into Colin and Gennete, the two Canadians we met in Igazu, and met another Canadian who was sharing our dorm called Wadel. He spent the first half hour of our association eplaining how he was going to be rich on the back of his idea for party prosthetic legs - the present models being, in his opinion, far to morbid. We imediately detected a fellow soul and agreed to go on a treck into the mountians as soon as we´d exausted Salta. That night, Saturday
the 8th, was the Assado for $15 pesos (around 2 pounds 70). The five of us sat together on a small table and awated the feast to help time pass we were given a 5 litre bottel of wine. (We were on a seperate table since we were late, having been delayed by a nailbiting Canada-England table football match. England won. Of course) The meat came and kept on coming, the wine just disappeared and as Genete only had one glass the four of us finished off the other 4.8 litres on our own. After that we had some live music that and after that memory starts to fade. I woke up in my bed as Dave stumbled into his (10am; According to him he had gone to sleep in the video room trying to use pilliows as a blanket; According to others he was last seen in a night club at around 5. He can neither confirm nor deny this.) . Magic!
On Sunday we just hung around the hostel; Dave only woke up at 2pm - very unlike him since in university he never once missed breakfast after a big night. He calls it altitude, I call
Dawn in the Andes
Would have been even nicer with a few hours good sleep. it weakness. There is alot to do near to Salta, near to however means within 200km, so it´s quite hard to get out to the places unless you are prepared to spend hours in a minibus and get herded round like cattel at absurd prices. None of these really held any appeal for us. Instead Dave, Wadel and I decided to go and rough camp in a place called San Antonio de los Corbres, a small mining town at 3700m in the Andies. We set off the next morning with little preperation and lots of enthusiasm. - Ian
We managed to get a local bus to take us the 168km there. The journey was a little different to the average 8:30 to Croydon. The seats went and the people stood around in our particuar section of the crush were breastfeeding, sporting spears, munching Coca leaves and trying to sell us various suspicious substances, which the vigourous rubbing of the their stomachs implied was food, but which looked of dubious nutritional value. Having been delayed first by problems fitting everything on the roof, and then by cattle in the road, we arrived about 10:30pm and began our treck. Reached an
appropriately impressive summit at around midnight and decided to pitch camp and cook dinner. This we did, with difficulty, and then went to sleep. Also with difficulty; the cacti, half buried rocks and a far from flat pitch not proving the most comfortable combination. On the plus side it went to just above minus 10 in the night and we weren´t cold at all, so at least we know our cold kit works.
Made it back to the town about 11 the next morning and started trying to hitchike back the 168km to Salta - a problem we hadn´t anticipated being that there are around three vehicles an hour on the road we were headed down, and fewer still who were inclined to stop for three suspicious looking gringos (Slang for Americans, but slanderously applied to all westerners) with large rucksacks. By 6 that evening we´d made it about halfway, first in the back of a boyracers truck, then in the wagon of a one eyed driver - which had worried us slightly at the time, depth perception being, we´d have thought, a useful asset with sharp turns and several hundred feet drops to the left or right.
The road is long
It was around here somewhere. We were just about to pitch for another night and cook up the last of our pasta and what had turned out against prior expectation to be tomato soup, when another trucker stoped, loaded our packs in with whatever the rest of his cargo was and shuffled his wife onto the floor so we could all fit into his cabin. A first class couple who lauhed and joked all the way back; full of conversation (Wadel´s mother was Costa Rican so he speaks fluent Spanish and acted as interpreter) and who rejected all our thanks claiming it was their privilage to take us. From where they stopped it was only a 20 minute bus ride to Salta, shower, curry and bed.
Next day checked out and decided to head for a town called San Agustin in a national park to the south, but first we had to get a bus to La Rioja just north of Agustin. The bus didn´t leave until 10:30pm so we spent the rest of the day first sat in the hostel socialising, then wandering around the rather pleasing local market where Waddel was determined to buy some stripped pyjamas. He was succsessful and returned
The mighty river
Frozen over in the night. Still can´t find the road. to the hostel while we headed for the bus, getting ut 9:00 this morning in Rioja. A town justly renowned for nothing and without a bus to San Agustin until friday and without hostels or hotels with vaccancies. One of the hotels offered to make up a couple of beds in a store room, which we accepted, and headed for breakfast. - David
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Rachit and Jamie
non-member comment
Yo yo wasup ma bro...
Hey Bro, how are ya, some fantastic reading, man it sounds like you are having a totally awesome time and painting the towns red in typical mayhem style- represent! hows ye olde tan coming along, keeping up studley image i hope, tee hee, have fun, lots of love, Rach, ps i did a skydive- yeh baby! Over to Jamie - Monsieur Mayhew Studley, how are you doing? Stupid question, I hadn't banked on you getting better weather than us you bugger. Talk about that cheeky taxi driver! Patience subsiding and rage taking over approach I trust you took. Anyway mon frere, take care and send us an email if you can. Peace! Loadsa love, Rachel and Jamie