Hosteria de Iruya Salta

... fridge then walked to the bus station. The bus was there so got straight on. As we were getting our luggage put on the bus we noticed a local fella throwing the baggage handler a peso, so all this time we thought they were taking the **** by asking us for money, whoops. Both of us couldn't empty our pockets fast enough it was comical.
The bus trip was alright, watched a couple of movies for the second and third times, maybe time to change bus operators. Slept so so, arrived Salta in the ...

... just curious and asked about where I was from etc, and he told me about himself. Of course this was preliminary to his hope I would subsequently opt to purchase some of the aforementioned tat; to be polite I said I`be be back later and asked him if he`d still be in the plaza, to which he replied he would. I went to an Irish bar just round the south-east corner of the plaza, after six or seven minutes of confused wandering thanks to an erroneously placed marker in my ...

... leaflets, we decided that we were going to rent a car and explore it ourselves. With advice from our hostel lady in mind, we booked with a local and reputable company, and returned to hostel that evening excited for our trip-within-a-trip.

That night T befriended one of the hostel workers, a young guy and total legend called Enzo, who ordered us a huge onion pizza to eat while we further investigated our road trip online. It ...

... at a little restaurant we found earlier but it turned out to be a disastrous meal, the chicken was not cooked, the mash was lumpy and Laura ate peppers to discover they didn't agree with her.
We decided to stop at the supermarket on the way back to grab a little snack for our trip tomorrow and then watched T.V before bed.

28th May 2009

Early start as being picked up for one of our trips today at 6.45am, although we were not sure which trip, it was a surprise. When our guide ...

... the herd, by himself, and starve himself to death in the wilderness. So sad! As we made our way closer to Cachi, rising in the background was the massive Nevado de Cachi, which is a snow-covered mountain made up of nine peaks. The tallest summit, Cumbre de General Libertador San Martin, reaches 6,400m! At the mirador of Nevado de Cachi, there were campesinos selling various spices, sundried tomatoes, nuts and peppers. These are some ...

... well and where there is a greater proportion of leftists who benefit from the government's protectionist policies, Christina Kirchner is incredibly unpopular in the NW. I met countless people who had many bad things to say about their President as their corner of the country is forgotten and ignored by the center and the provincial government does not have the same clout as much wealthier and more ...

From Mendoza I headed north to Salta. The bus ride was again long and uneventful, however it did have the added bonus of three movies to watch (but it highly annoys me that they are english movies being shown both dubbed in spanish and with spanish subtitles!!!), and joyous bus food to eat. Even the woman next to me must have been bored, as she started playing semi-tour guide, pointing out the areas where the majority of Argentina`s sugar is grown ...

... s for certain. We drove up past Jujuy (pronounced hoohuey but with a "ch" like in loch so really "choochuey" yes, try practising it, we had to). We stopped for lunch at Pumamerca to see the incredible seven shaded mountains before heading to the salt lakes (Salanis Grandes). Of the things I have seen on this trip the salt flats were out of this world. Truly stunning. I took some photos and for the first time I was impressed with the ...

... heute von den Salinas Grandes gekommen, Salzseen etwa 45 Kilometer von Purmamarca entfernt. Klingt vielleicht nicht so weit, aber auf dem Weg mussten sie einen Pass von weit ueber 4,000 Metern ueberqueren, mit vollem Campinggepaeck. Alle Achtung! Das Pferd ist auch noch weit in die Nacht hinein aktiv und so koennen wir es auch aus unserem Zelt heraus noch schmatzen hoeren, waehrend wir einschlafen. So idyllisch hatten wir uns unsere Zelttour gar nicht vorstellen koennen. Am ...

... and Paul had the best steak ever which cost about 3 pounds. We also watched a folk performance which was good, especially the dancer who had 2 pieces of rope with a ball of some kind at the end which made a good clunking sound. He whirled them round alot and when he had enough momentum he put them in his mouth and moved his head from side to side. Pretty impressive but he must of got a lot of black eyes practicing that!! Mon 25 Feb We went on a ...