Heading into Argentina!

Trip Start Jun 11, 2008
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Trip End May 14, 2009

Flag of Argentina  , Northern Argentina,
Thursday, March 26, 2009

We were up and having breakfast at 7.30am this morning. This was so we could get to the train station when it opened at 8am. We weren't sure how difficult it would be to get tickets, but it was really easy. We decided on 'Ejectivo' seats instead of the standard ones (only a few BOBS more). I was worried that 'Ejectivo' meant we would bet ejected along the way but luckily it just meant executive seats.
This just guaranteed us a comfortable seat for the journey. It's only supposed to take 3 hours but Connor & Katie's journey northbound took 6 hours!! For this reason, we opted for the comfortable option.

The train itself was only 30 minutes late in departing Tupiza, leaving at 9.35am, which was a shock in itself!! After half an hour of the journey we were given free refreshments - bottle of coke and a hot cheese sandwich - not bad really.

As we trundled along there was some great scenery to see through the countryside. Also, we were blessed with a music DVD being shown of Los Igundaros!! These are our new favourite Latin American band - not because we liked them, but because we couldn't get their blummin' music out of our heads after having rammed into our ears for over an hour!!

Finally the train personnel came to their senses and put a film on - "Into The Blue" - wasn't too bad.

We eventually rumbled into Villazon at 1pm. It only took 5 minutes to get our bags off and then we started the walk towards the border. We could have got a taxi, but we only had 1 Boliviano on us - we don't like to have wasted money on us when leaving a country!

It was about a 20 minute walk to the border, so not too bad. We were less than 30 seconds getting our exit stamp from the Bolivian side - very easy. We then stumbled our way across 50 yards of no-mans land and up to the Argentinean border control office.
We had a 30 minute wait here. The control officers are pretty strict on the Bolivians coming through which delayed things a little. Us gringos were through in no time once we got to the desk.

Whilst waiting in the queue, we got chatting to the couple in front of us. They were boyfriend & girlfriend - Martin was from Argentina and Stefani was from Italy. They were really nice and offered to help us get our bus ticket to Salta as that's where they were heading.
Once through customs, the four of us jumped in a taxi to the bus terminal. We didn't have any Argentinean Pesos at this stage but Martin kindly paid for the taxi (it was only 5 pesos, which is less than a quid, but it was still a nice gesture).

Once in the terminal, Martin and I went to get the bus tickets. We used Flechabus as Martin knew these were the best and luckily they let us pay in US Dollars, and at a very reasonable rate. We ended up paying the equivalent of 57 Pesos for each ticket whilst everybody else was paying 70!!

As we are now in Argentina we have moved on an hour, so it was about 3.30pm now and the bus was due to leave at 4.45pm. We stood around with Martin & Stefani, chatting and having a sandwich until it was time to board the bus.

When we were loading our backpacks, the terminal loading boys demanded one peso each per bag. I was going to reluctantly pay, but Martin stopped me. Apparently, you don't have to pay anything, it is just a tip. Martin says that the usual rate is only 0.25 of a peso, but they try and exploit the tourists (two girls on the bus got skanked for 5 pesos each, per bag). Martin was really angry with the terminal boys and reported them to the station master. He says he gets really annoyed when people in his country exploit the tourists.

We finally departed the terminal at 4.50pm, but only travelled for 10 minutes. We were then stopped by some checkpoint police and everyone was ordered to get off with their bags.
This check was, again, aimed at the Bolivians. All the backpackers were just ushered to one side whilst the border police went through all the locals bags! There is allegedly a lot of smuggling going off down here.
We were only here about 15 minutes before we were all back on the bus again and heading for Salta. We are hoping to get there around midnight.

As it happens we arrived at 11pm! The four of us jumped in a taxi and it dropped me & Lorna off at our hostel - Hostel Corre Caminos. We said our goodbyes to Martin & Stefani and made them promise to come to England one day so we could repay their helpfulness.

This evening we just crashed in the bedroom ready for a full day tomorrow.
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