The big man takes a fall

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After our exhausting bus trip, we finally arrived in Salta in the Northwest of Argentina. We arrived on a Sunday and were pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere. Once we checked in to our hostal, we headed out to the plaza to check out what the Salta markets had to offer. The local market was a lot calmer then those in Buenos Aires and there was a lot more room to move around, which Andrew was extremely grateful for. We spent a couple of hours hanging around the plaza simply enjoying the food on offer and watching families enjoying their time together. On our wander about the city, we were roped into booking a 12 hour tour with a tourist agency (we did well to escape the other 13 agencies that approached us) for the next day.

After an early night we were off a 7am. After being told our guide spoke better English then the woman we signed up with, we were amused when he showed up speaking not a word of English, but oh well, how else are we supposed to learn the language. So off we went, the two of us, our Spanish speaking guide and two guys from Buenos Aires, who lucky for us spoke some basic English, so were able to translate any vital information for us. We headed north to check out the rest of the Salta province. On or tour we saw the mountain of seven colours, numerous dried up rivers (it is the dry season after all), parts of the Andes, the tracks of the “train in the clouds,” small Quechua villages, some salt flats, a billion cactus, and managed to ascend to over 4000meters.

One of our stops was a small Quechua village of five families sitting nicely. A woman showed us around the village to give us an idea of how they manage to live in such harsh, dry conditions and in such isolation. She showed us the chickens and sheep and then to our surprise took us into their green house where they were growing all the veggies they needed. As you can imagine there was quite a bit more oxygen in the green house then there was outside. Well upon exiting Andrew started to get a bit dizzy, due to the altitude, after a few minutes he started walking all over the show and mentioned he didn’t feel too well. So not sure what else to do I tried to help him back to the car 15meters away. Well about five meters into it Andrew lost it, fell to the ground, taking me with him and blacked out for a decent minute or more. Thankfully our guide was an expertise in the matter of altitude related problems and got us to put Andrew into a better breathing position, and managed to bring him around. I was pretty freaked out by the whole thing, though it all turned out fine, and Andrew was more embarrassed by making a scene then worried.

After 11 hours of driving in a cramped car in the dry, dusty heat with only 2 hours of time outside of the car. We were relieved to finally get back to the hostal safe and sound.

So that was Salta. Off to La Quiaca for our first land border crossing into Bolivia.

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Photos

Saltas Plaza
The waterfountain in the middle of the plaza, which was surrounded by market stalls

Dry river
Out on our excursion infront of yet another dry river

Mountain of seven colours
Amazing colours in the mountain, and a chance to get out of the car for a photograph

Great little village
We stopped in this tiny village and found market crafts galore

High Altitude
Breathing easy above 4000meters

High Altitude
Struggling somewhat for breath

Where it all happened
Andrew all recovered and leaving the scene of the crime

Cathedral in Salta
Pretty impressive by night