Blogs from Salta, Argentina, South America - page 6

Armed with Pesos, which I obtained at a decent (50% better than the official) rate in Encarnacion, I crossed the bridge to Posadas, Argentina. My plan for the next couple of weeks was to travel west, towards Salta, then north (and uphill) to the Bolivian border. Instead of staying in Posadas, I decided to make some immediate headway and booked a bus ticket to Resistencia, around six hours away. With what seemed like plenty of time to spare, I had a leisurely lunch and looked on the internet for a place to stay - unfortunately, it seemed there were no hostels in Resistencia, so I would have stay in an expensive (£20 a night at my favourable exchange rate) hotel. However, I forgot that Argentina was an hour ahead of Paraguay, and so when I arrived ... read more

Santiago,Mendoza, BA, Iguasu Dazed. Confused. Wide eyed. We time warped our way to South America (gaining a day with the time change) like rabbits in the headlights. Arriving in Santiago Chile we felt out of our depth having not done any research about the next leg of our trip. Desperately hanging onto all the Spanish we knew ('Hola') we realised this was going to be far more challenging than we had anticipated. Luckily we were eased into the experience by some of Charlie's family friends in Santiago having lunch at their mountain club and being shown the sights of the modern, European-esque, high rise, economic capital of Chile. After only a couple of days in Chile we moved on to Argentina and realised that Argentinian travel was right up our street. Although it is more expensive ... read more

This is our second entry around Salta, but this time we are venturing north for a loop of 500km following first the tracks of the "Train in the clouds", followed by the Grande Salinas, finishing by the amazing scenery of Purmacarca before heading back to Salta. But first, while exploring the provinces of Salta and Jujuy, we stay a total of two nights in Salta. The city is pretty compact, there are two nice churches...on nice little museum with a child mummy sacrified by the incas...an actually pretty interesting exhibits, even for Leslie and Tiffany...and that's nearly it for Salta. We also found a great restaurant next door from the Sheraton for some serious milanesas and steak... The area around Salta is basically boring, you need to hit at least 100km out of town to start ... read more

Ah Salta, you have made up for the bus trip from hell to get here. Leaving Mendoza at 8pm last Friday we were in good spirits after having spent a nice week in Argentina's 4th largest city and wine capital. Soon though, our spirits were dented as not long after a somewhat passable dinner was served, a loud clunking sound started emanating from the back of the bus. It was not a good sound, and was even louder when the bus changed directions between lanes or around corners. The drivers soon took notice and started stopping the bus to check on it every 30 minutes. After a few hours we found ourselves in a very small & dusty truckstop of a town disturbing the local mechanic from his friday night beer drinking (it was midnight by ... read more

9/4/13 Cordoba to Salta Once again another mile long walk to the bus station, found our stop, got on the bus, got handed ‘breakfast’ and off we set for the 13 hour marathon to Salta. We had the front seats at the top which meant great views but being baked in the sun, there was a tv screen near us and films were shown continuously. The bus did actually stop once for 30 minutes – so the driver could eat and then the non-stop filmathon continued until we arrived in Salta. We walked to our hotel (the San Francisco) in the company of Rick from Orlando who was also on our bus and by the time we arrived we were totally knackered! 10 – 13th Salta, Argentina Feeling better after a good night’s sleep we set ... read more