Salta La Linda
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2007
1
18
42
Trip End
Ongoing
Salta,
Argentina
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Our only brief stop was a mouldy ALMUERZO (lunch) at a dilapidated restaurant in a little country village 2 hours outside Salta. As you travel north the immediate things you notice are that the people look more ethnic, the spoken Spanish is harder to understand & fewer English speakers can be found. Salta, La Linda (the beautiful) as it's often termed, resembles the Connemara/Gaeltacht areas of Ireland in that it's scenic, rural & full of folklore. It's both a province & its capital city. Vast mountains, as we saw on approach, surround the city itself, a trait that is echoed in most northern Arg cities. We rolled into the station around 4pm after a bout of Blood Diamond & Ratatouille but for all the world, we could have been in Berlin with the immeasurable quantity of German conversations in earshot.
Plaza 9 de julio
Before we arrived a little time was invested in mailing hostels so we had several in mind but our first stop, Casa Puebla, was adequate, p60 for a private room en suite with tv. After a welcomed shower we hit the tourist office picking up maps & some words of wisdom before moseying down Calle Buenos Aires to the travel agents. There are a total of 87 in the town & all the reps plague you on the street but the prices vary little in each window. Eventually we opted for two 2-day tours, one going north to the province of Jujuy (p250) & the other venturing into southern Salta (p260) so p510 lock stock each.
With the following days planned out we roamed about the town; not particularly huge the main areas can be seen in a few hours. As with all Argentine cities, each has a central plaza dedicated to the countries independence & liberator, which are picturesque but at this stage a little originality wouldn't hurt ... maybe a 10 ft gold memorial to Fr Matthew or something. On entering Salta you can't miss the TELEFERICO (cable-car) that carries you from the vicinity of the bus terminal to Cerro de San Bernardo, the principal mountain overlooking the city. With time to burn we chose the more challenging 1070 steps that guide the way to the summit with every 100 steps denoted by a nicely graffitied station of the cross memorial. Although most locals use it to jog, it's a tourist magnet as the peak provides stunning panoramic views of the city & adjacent scenery. A king sized parrilla around the corner from the Goblin Irish bar chased down by the mother of all thunder showers ensured a proper soaking while pegging it back. As its rainy season in the north, flooding makes the news on a daily basis.
A sunny Sunday lead us to the nearby village of San Lorenzo for a lazy day. The bus route takes you past countless mansions with swimming pools, gauchos on horseback & optimistic fishermen. There's a little river flowing through the area where people generally bathe & come to eat the ritualistic Sunday ASADO. Bordered by a valley, you can trek through the ecological reserve nearby. Like any touristy spot it's lined with souvenir stalls, replicas of what we saw on returning that evening at the perimeter of Parque San Martin displaying virtually no variation. With Salta being the home of empanadas we indulged at El Patio de las Empanadas ... in a word, savage cabbage!
Comments
cachi
i saw on some web sites that recomended going to a town callrd cachi that is located in the region for instanse http://www.trekcafe.com/travel/?action=AR
talks about this town a lot.
did you hear about it when you went there and if so what are yout thoughts about it?
Re: cachi
Hi
If you look 3 entries later in the blog 'Via Cuesto del Obispo to Cafayte' it relays our time in Cachi. It is similar to Purmamarca & Humahuaca in character but wasn't as beautiful in my opinion which is why I wouldn't recommend an overnight stay there. Most tours pass through Cachi & it's worthy of a short stop. The route to Cachi from Salta & from Cachi to Cafayte is MUCH more impressive.