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Published: January 28th 2010
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Salta, Argentina
The border crossing from Villazón to La Quiaca. Welcome to Argentina. Salta is a nice city with a comfortable feel but not too much to do. During our time in the city, we took a small tour which involved a nice ride around in an open bus for a couple hours. The bus was cheap and we were able to see several churches, monuments, statues and other important buildings so was worth the wait (it wasn´t an arranged tour so we had to wait at the bus stop for it to come around). We also took a ride up the Teleférico (which was over-priced and not worth the money). We had a couple nice meals at a fancy steakhouse and Braeden was really happy to finally have a good piece of meat (the steak was about the size of his face!). We also saw a movie but spent most days wandering around and doing not much of anything, especially since most places were closed from shortly after noon until early evening. Argentina is the first country we have been to that takes siesta time seriously. In fact, a lot of restaurants don´t even re-open until 8pm or later.
It was quite an experience getting here and the road
Salta, Argentina
View from the teleférico. traveled was not fun or easy. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad and this definitely was one of the bad. In fact, I believe it was probably the worst day we have had since starting on this adventure (and you know it´s bad when it beats the worthless, dirty trip to Uyuni). This is how it went...
We caught our bus on the morning of the 19th from Tupiza which was dirty and (of course) running late. We had paid extra money for what we thought was a direct bus through to Salta hoping to avoid unnecessary delays and headaches at the border but our bus made numerous unnecessary stops along the way to Villazón where the Bolivian-Argentinian borders meet. The border crossing was brutal as no one either knows what a cue is or just refuses to use one so we finally decided to do like everyone else and pushed our way through and got stamped out of Bolivia. We had 2 more ¨lines¨ to wait in to enter Argentina and, due to the disorganization and massive delays, we missed our 3pm bus to Salta. We waited around the small Argentinian border town of La Quiaca until
8pm. We caught the 7 hour night bus which made approx. 8-10 stops, turning on the lights and making it impossible to sleep. Also, several men on the bus were standing up chatting and drinking the whole way, slamming into my chair which obviously made me very angry. (It´s frustrating not knowing enough Spanish to be able to accurately tell people to knock it off).
Things got worse when we arrived in Salta at 3:15am only to discover that the hostel room we had reserved and paid a deposit on (which I never got back) had been given away and there were no other rooms available. The man working the desk was nice enough to call several other hostels and finally found us one but it was no prize. Since it was now 4am, they knew they had us and effectively used this to rip us off. We ended up paying $25 USD for a bed that had been set up in a dirty storage room amongst sheets of dry wall. The window did not exist in the pane so everyone using the common area/kitchen in the morning might as well have been sitting on our bed. We did
Salta, Argentina
The police station. not stay another night.
We did however end up finding ´Residencial Balcarce´ which is a very nice hotel for around the same price as the storage room we stayed in the night prior, equipped with a private bathroom and fan which is absolutely necessary as it is HOT here. We have already discovered the big price difference between Argentina and the other cheap countries we have been through such as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. (I think we routed our trip wrong having done the cheap countries prior to high-season and leaving the more expensive ones til the end).
All in all, Argentina seems nice so far and it is definitely nice to be in a country where you can brush your teeth with the tap water! Next stop, Cordoba.
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Judy
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Cordaba
Hi, We're in Cordaba now and are thinking of going to Salta next but after reading your experiences, we're not sure we want to go ... expecially since we kind of like Cordaba. So....what's your opinion when you compare both places? We're not into the bar scene but love to explore old buildings and parks. We also like good food - Alex thinks a face-size steak would be just about right!