Hello Argentina
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2008
1
26
34
Trip End
Nov 19, 2008
Salta,
Northern Argentina,
Argentina
Monday, September 8, 2008
Our bus arrived and it was clear straight away that we were back to relatively comfortable travel. We set off for our short seven hour journey to Salta feeling happy that our decision to get up at 3.15am seemed to have proved to be a good one.
I was getting comfortable and settling down to some much needed sleep when, just five minutes into our journey, the bus came to a halt. "Security Check" I thought to myself and continued to dose. Three hours later we still hadnīt moved! Our early start now completely pointless. It was frustrating, but if this trip has taught me anything it is patience! In a way it was quite amusing really. We had carefully, and fortuitously, managed to avoid all roadblocks and disruptions, even through the minefield of Bolivia. Yet, within two kilometres of Argentina we were held up by a roadblock! Just when we thought they were were going to cancel the bus and we were going to have to arrange to stay in an unpleasant border town for the night, the conductor announced that we were going to try the old raod out of town. WHAT!? Why didnīt we try this idea two hours ago I thought! Never mind, we were off and that was the important thing. We set off and, apart form the fact that the bus almost broke down, the rest of the journey was uneventful. We arrived in Salta tired and hungry 16 hours after setting off that morning!
We arrived at our hostel, or so we thought, only to find out that there are two Corre Caminos hostels in Salta and we had come to the wrong one! Luckily there wasnīt a problem, the tow places are run by the same group and the friendly guy at the hostel said if we liked we could saty there that night and then move on in the morning. This sounded ilike agreat idea to me. I wasnīt keen on traipsing across town. I just wanted food and then bed! We got changed and then headed out. Our heads spun with all the traffic, the paved roads and the bright signs and street lights. It was so different to what we were used to and it was quite disorientating. Unsurpisingly, I had been looking forward to my first Aregentian steak for some time and I wasnīt going to let my tiredness or a late bus stop me! As we got to the main square we first of all saw the bright pink cathedral which dominates the area.
pink cathedral
There was a huge crowd of people outside so we moved closer thinking there must be some kind of event going on. Turned out that it was just people who couldnīt fit inside the cathedral for mass. Crazy busy and this on a Friday night at 8.30! The main square was lovely with street cafes, palm trees and brightly coloured flowers. Theclimate was nice and warm and people were miling about and have drinks in the cafes after work. It was really nice, if different to what we had experienced so far. Way more European!We wandered around for a little while looking for a nice restaurant to go to. We finally settled on a nice looking place with an open fire pit with baby goat roasting over the open coals and a huge parilla (BBQ) with eqaully huge steaks sizzling away on it. Inside lots of neat tables with white tableclothes and big wine glasses. It looked the perfect palce to start our Argentian steak fest. We werenīt to be disappointed.
Although we had sat down at around nine the place was still pretty empty, must be the fact that itīs Monday I thought to myself. We got the menus from our waiter a looked through our eyes widening at each page turned. There was a lot of meat and red wine. Perfect! We both ordered the Bife de Chorizo (Sirloin) with some chips and steamed veg on the side to share along with there house red for about. The wine cost only 7 pesos (about a pound thirty!) everything else was quite pricey (for us). The waiter congratualted us on our choice. Nice. When the food arrived it was worth the wait! It was great. The steaks were huge, perfectly cooked and tasty. The wine big and spicy! Tiredness was forgotten for a little while! Amazingly our stomachs had shrunk and we had a real problem eating it all. We left the restaurant tired, happy, full, and a little tipsy! It was about 10.30 and the place was still filling up. I was going to like Argentina even if my waist line was not!
We woke the next day to a beautiful sunny day and decided that we would move to our the hostel we had booked. We jumped in a cab (which the hostel paid for - nice touch) and headed across town. Although the new hostel wasnīt as central, it was much nicer and far better value. The rooms were set around a central courtyard and there was a swimming pool, pool table, free internet, nice kitchen and parilla! I would definitely recommend it. We really liked it. The staff at both places were really friendly .
Unpacked and refreshed we went to the supermarket toget supplies. We knew that our budget did not allow us to eat out in Argentina as much as in the other countries and we would have to do more self catering. It was actually quite nice to cook for ourselves again and I must admit I do like looking around foreign supermarkets (something that drives George crazy!) We spent the rest of the day generally relaxing and reading by the side of the pool. It felt like being on holiday! It felt so good to be in shorts and a t shirt again after two months wrapped in layers of clothes.
The next morning we got up early and headed to the park for a trip on the cable car! It was another nice day when we got to the immaculate cable car staion just as they were opening and we jumped on the 2nd car to go up. After overcoming my fear of heights (and cable cars) it was nice to look out over the city and surrounding mountains. George decided that she would pray on my fear and rock the cable car! Funny. We got to the top and walked around the nice gardens and pretty waterfalls. It was all quite pleasant but we have been spoiled for views really. We thougth we should try and get some excercise so decided to walk back to the hostel; an hour walk that took in some of Saltaīs pretty residential neighbourhoods. I looked around and thought to myself "I could definitely get used to this place." The people were all friendly, it had a great climate, the food was nice and the surroundig area beautiful. When we asked a guy we had met in the hostel how long he had been in Salta, he looked slightly embarrassed and surpirsed as he realised it had been three weeks! It was easy to see how it could happen.
cable car station
waterfall
That afternoon whilst having lunch we met a couple from South London, Toby and Louise. They had had enough of the reat race and quit their jobs, sold their house and decided to do some travelling before hopefully settling again in Australia. It was really nice to meet up with some more people. We hit it off straight away, chatting away for couple of hours before deciding to head to a museum together. Party animals eh!? The museum was quite good though, with great examples of more Inca mummies and asscociated burial artefacts. It was nicely laid out and the mummy quite impressive and it was good to read a different interpretation on some of the Inca ceremonies, but it was way overpriced. 
cates
After the museum we all decided that after the andean cold evenings it was time to take advantage of the warm evening and street cafes. We chose one on the main square and sipped beers as we watched people bustiling around, buskers filling the air with music. It was nice. We chatted away until it was time to head back to the hostel for a barbeque. Amazingly this was free. A perk of being organised for once. Finally, our organised neuroses had paid off! They BBQ was great. Loads of meat (unsurprisingly), potato salad, and green salad all awsked down with bucket loads of wine. There was the two of us, Toby and Louise, a Swiss girl called Maria, and a Kiwi called Donna plus Fernando the hostelīs BBQ master. We were allslightly older travellers (middle aged to you Vanessa!) with George being the youngest so we all had lots in common. It was a great night, and it had been ages since I had stayed up late and drunk too much!
pile of meat!
The next day was a bit of a wash out really, I got up late with a foggy head and we basically just mooched around. I did recover in time for supper though and we went out to the same restaurant as the first night. Excellent again!
The next day we decided to buy our bus tickets to Puerto Iguaįu before we got stuck here for three weeks too! It was to be our first 24 hour bus journey. I wasnīt looking foraward to it.
I really enjoyed Salta and its feel. Streets coming alive from eight in the evening and restaurants filling up at ten. The firendliness of the people was also really nice. I had been worried and had read that Argentinians might be a bit standoffish especially given English-Argentian relations werenīt great in the past! But we found everyone to be really friendly and warm. I hoped the rest off Argentina would be as enojoyable.
i see the light!
horseman
