Hotel Solar de la Plaza Salta

... The "office" was a pokey little hovel that looked as if it had been derelict for a number of years. I had no choice but to cross the border; the Dutch couple had done the crossing before and told me that you can only cross on foot anyway. I assumed that my bus would be departing from La Quiaca on the Argentinian side. We walked ten minutes in the bitter cold, got our passports stamped on both sides and then had a vigorous bag check carried out by a miserable ...

... by hundreds of school kids who seemed to take the afternoon off and hang out at the plaza and pedestrian streets). Saw beautiful churches and other buildings, and a museum with Inca mummies of sacrificed children from a mountain. Interesting, although we saw a similar one in Peru. In the afternoon there was a city tour with the group. Went up to a lookout place called San Bernardo. Nice view over the whole city. Then we went to see some residential areas etc, not too interesting. We ...

... tea (with tea leaves AND a strainer!) If only I had found this place 3 days earlier... Later that evening we met the rest of "the group". There are 11 of us in total (there were supposed to be 13 but 2 failed to turn up and we have yet to hear of their whereabouts or even existence). There are 4 mixed couples, Livia, myself and Lisa, another lone traveller from Sweden. My first impressions are good. If I may so say myself we are indeed a lovely ...

... in their province, jujenos are incredibly happy and smiling people. I grabbed lunch at an old man's pool hall, where there were these old guys in their smartest suits sitting around all day arguing about politics or futbol while throwing back cups of coffee. Despite the poverty of the city, they have some amazing internet cafes. One contained 100 machines, while the other had 40. The connections were pretty decent, there were DVD players ...

... of the hill. Along the way there were many altars, with many locals stopping to pray and light candles at each on the way up to the top. So in conclusion, Salta was probably not the most exciting place in the world, and i hear that the surrounds were worth the effort in doing some day trips (if only i were not so lazy and it were not easter weekend). But alas, i was pretty much just keen to hop right along to Bolivia. I could feel a change ahead...

The journey from Santiago crossed back through the Andes into Argentina, and again the scenery was breathtaking, but very difficult to catch on camera through the filthy window of the bus. We changed buses in Mendoza and continued onto Salta, which is a nice town in the far north west of Argentina, about 5 hours or so from the border with Bolivia. It sits amongst stunning desert like scenery, and is a great base for a trip around the ...

Mercredi 11 Arrivee Cordova 9h. changement de billet et jappelle Girardo, rencontre a Potosi, avec qui je dois dejeuner. Ballade en centre ville en attendant, je tombe devant la catedrale sur marc et Antoine rencontres a Salta! Girardo arrive a la bourre a 12h30, cest bizarre de le revoir on se connait pas mais il est plutot cool! on part vers le quartier de luniversite, paseo bien agreable, dejeuner vite fait et il maccompagne a la gare pour 14h.

... he was driving and not me. Of course, this time, I was driving. It was incredibly dense rainforest/jungle interspersed with extremely dangerous hair pin turns and massive sheer drops. A pleasure to drive through morning or night and ideal for my first experience of driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Add that to the fact that we were both a little tense after our police experience Pete spent most of the journey trying not to bark ...

... noch bis jetzt haetten ausschlafen koennen, und beschliessen nun auf dem schnelleren (sprich asphaltierten) Weg ueber Salta in Richtung Sueden zu fahren, um bis zum Abend in Cafayate zu sein, denn wir haben nur noch eine Nacht und Cafayate wollen wir uns nicht entgehen lassen. Auf halbem Weg werden wir von einem Esel angehalten, der erst die Strasse blockiert und dann gierig seinen Kopf durch die heruntergelassene Fensterscheibe steckt. Erst nach Erhalt einer leckeren Moehre ...

... change Chillean Pesos into Bolivars (Bolivian Pesos). It appears that no one outside Bolivia wants their currency... Although we finally found an exchange that had a quoted Buy/Sell price for B$ when Matt reached the front of the queue he was informed that it was for "Information only"... We ask you, why! So, we're going to arrive in Bolivia tomorrow, into a town with no ATM and with no local currency of our own - and needing to catch a bus out ASAP. Should be fun.