Salta...Argentina

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Crossing the border into Argentina was very exciting but also very laborious. Typically, Bolivian organisation was limited and a line of approx 60 people continuously queued at the passport control where one guy sat, alone, typing with 2 fingers, entering in all passport details...

We were both really excited to see Argentina though as we knew the food was going to be great and cheap (we hadnt even attempted fresh fruit or veg for ages and we were looking forward to a good feed!), the wine tasty and world-renowned... We travelled through beautiful scenery and past stunning lakes, felt the termperature rise as we eased back down to only 1,187 meters above sea level and on arrival in Salta, everything was as expected...

The Hispanic architecture of the city was outstanding. The colonial spirit from the times of the foundation remains in its houses, streets, hundred-year-old monuments and narrow sidewalks surrounded by the mountains nearby. The main square houses a beautiful cathedral and numerous coffee shops and ice cream parlours where smart argentinians sip expressos and tourists snap action shots of a life so different to that a few hours away in Bolivia, it is almost untrue. The argentinians have a completely different outlook and seem to take real pride in everything.

One of the highlights of our time in Salta was the opportunity to go zip lining or rappelling. This is something we had been looking forward to since we tried white water rafting in Cusco. We zip lined over a huge gauge where, at times, the lines were as long as 450m and VERY high up. It was so much fun. We had to draw straws as everyone wanted to do it but Sarah even had a go at The Superman which looked even more thrilling. You got to hang almost upside down, attached to the guide, whilst you ziplined across the gauge and they did all the hard work...he he. Much more relaxing.

At this point in the trip we knew we only had a couple more weeks with the tour we had joined in Lima and we made the decision to abandon ship and go solo to Buenos Aires. We had originally planned to see Santiago and Chile but since the next few weeks were only likely to get colder, involved lots of camping and we had heard Santiago, our penultimate city in South America, was a real smog ridden dump, we decided to remain in Argentina for the Iguazu falls, maybe see Uruguay and spend some more time in Buenos Aires than we had previously planned. This made much more sense to us as we had only allowed 4 days to cover an awful lot upon arrival in BA and this way, we would have 2, nearly 3 weeks to see and do much more at a reasonable pace. We also felt the need to get out on our own again and start planning our own itineraries so we left the group in Salta and caught a surprisingly cheap and posh night bus to BA...We even got champagne with our evening movie!...Can you imagine National Express even forking out for a coffee and tea machine, let alone a toilet, fleeces, pillows and lazy boy reclining chairs!??

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Comments

[suz]

oh my...
well you look like you are having an excellent time...soooo wish I was there...Suz x x x