Cristian Hotel Salta

... Seit gut zwei Stunden fahren wir durch wilde Hochebenen, riesige Salt Flats, ab und an sieht man scheue Vicunas, von denen das domestizierte Lama abstammt.
Die Fahrt runter nach San Pedro (2500m) koennte gegensaetzlicher zum Aufstieg nicht sein, anstelle von Serpentinen tritt eine unendlich lange Rampe! Fuer die schwerst beladenen Laster eine echte Herausforderung, die nicht selten ins Auge geht ... Vor 6 Monaten verunfalte ein mit Fleisch beladener Laster - binnen ...

... Such rudeness - she should have seen who I was and sat on the floor. It didn`t matter too much however, as me and my inflatable neck-pillow, after eight weeks of travelling, have finally got better at sleeping on nightbuses, a combination, I believe, of growing accustomed to the non-prone sleeping position, and of Argentinian roads being normal and smooth as opposed to savagely rugged and sleep-disruptingly bumpy as the roads are in the rest of the countries I`ve visited.

... can feel quite bad looking, as this young Inca child has been removed from her resting place but it is hard to look away and was truly an informative experience.

We are off on a midnight bus tonight to La Quica to cross the boarder into Bolivia, country number 4. North Argentina has been short but we have loved it and canīt wait to come back to do the rest of Argentina later.

Will update soon.

Love,
Renee and Eugene xx

... riding their horses, invited us to a dance recital of their eldest daughter and let us spend the most wonderful day at their house on the bank of El Dique reservoir. I am indebted to them for their generosity and for going beyond their commitment to Lattitude, Felicity is very lucky to be placed with such a caring, generous family. I also need to thank a good friend I made in Salta, Kike. Keen to give me a bolt-hole from my host family and desperate that I didn't ...

... and lots of really nice buildings and squares and parks. It has a cafe culture similar to what you would find in Europe which we took full advantage of. We arrived from Chile after a stunning journey through desert, mountains (we went up to 5000m) and crazy rock formations. At the border between Chile and Argentina we were all taken off the bus with our rucksacks and taken into an enormous warehouse where we put down our rucksacks and then we all had to line up ...

... in the air and the altitude. We reached the second through fourth levels of the Yungas by passing through an area known as La Cuesta del Obispo (slope or path of the Bishop). A beautiful and sinous drive, the area gets its name from a story of a really fat 17th century Bishop who hiked over the hills with the aid of donkeys rather than just walking through the flats around the hills. It was while riding up the Cuesta that we saw the ...

... like the dry Patagonian-steppe of the southern cone with low brush and small rolling hills. The area between Neuquen and Cordoba (via Santa Rosa) felt like tumbleweeds lands you would find in the parched SW US. Immediately after we passed Cordoba, there was brief lush greenery, but that quickly disappeared and was replaced by desert oasis topography: cacti, green brush/grass, small and infrequent trees and ...

... dans un boui-boui dans le Mercado Central, enorme halle remplie de marchands de viandes, d'epices, de legumes et de mini restaurant populaires. On se prend des Tamales et des Humitas (feuilles de mais enveloppant une farce au fromage et au mais ou a la viande) suivie d'une enorme milanaise. Le soir nous rencontrons guillem, un francais deja rencontre a Punte del Inca. Du coup on se raconte notre voyage dans une peņa (bar folklorique gaucho avec danse) jusqu'a 4h...

... uns und deutet auf unsere Wasserflasche. Wir sind noch ganz verdutzt als sie schon von jmd. etwas zu trinken bekommt um dann wieder in Richtung Strasse zu gehen. Wenig spaeter kommt sie wieder zurueck, um sich nun auch von uns eine Wasserflasche zu sichern. Als wir schon beim Bezahlen sind, sehen wir wie sie Knochenreste von einem Tisch einsammelt und der Mutti um die Ecke bringt, die dort an der Strasse ein paar Armreifen verkauft. Wir sind die Meister im Alter-Falsch-Raten ...

... had a mummy which was an Incan Sacrifice. The altitude was now 3,200 and we noticed that we were a little out of breath after walking up some steps to the museum. We carried on up through the gorge and Edgar pointed out that cactus only grown between 1,500 - 3,500m so we would be able to tell when we were over the 3,500 mark as there would suddenly be no cactus. We came to the Abra Blanca pass which was 4,080m which marked the end of the gorge ...