Ana_Salta (Northern Argentina)

Here we are in northern Argentina in the city of Salta, BEAUTIFUL town. So far it´s my favorite town. Colonial, quaint and very homey. I love the architecture, lots of old structure. The churches are very beautiful too. The people are super friendly. Now I understand why people we´ve met along the way insisted we come and visit.

The guy who sold us the bus tickets to go to Pucon told us that we should rent a car when we came to Salta. He took his time to map out the route for us to do. He claimed it was the best trip of his life. We did listen to him and we can see why he said that.

We rented the car for two days. We drove down to the surrounding areas of Salta. We took the route through the valleys south of Salta like the guy said. It was out of this world. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking. The scenery kept changing every minute it seemed like from huge mountains to lush desert. We saw tons of animals-cows, bulls, donkeys, birds, sheeps, goats, horses and llamas. It was so cool to see them hanging out on the side of the road. We had to be careful sometimes they´d cross the road right in front of you.

I can´t find the words to describe the scenery. Photos won´t do justice. We kept taking pictures. We´ve got a few quicktimes as well that capture a little more of the experience. Nature it´s so amazing.

The drive was an adventure of it´s own. We drove on dirt roads for 10 hours. Well, I should say Tim drove but I was so tense that I felt I was driving too. There were poddles and sketchy areas we had to go through in a small, red car, like a Geo Metro. Tim was so cute to calm me down like saying "we got it knuckle, no worries." We pretty much had the road to ourselves. I was afraid of getting stranded in the middle of no where. But Tim had faith that it would be no problem to get help. Still I was so nervous at times. We went through a lot of tiny towns where the houses were made of mud. Interesting to see, middle of no where.

We left Salta 7 am and we got to the city of Cafayate around 8pm. I was so thankful we made it in one piece. The town was small and quaint as well. It´s surrounded by tons of vineyards. It´s said to produce a big percentage of Argentina´s wine.

We found a hostal with a private room and cheap too. It was only $40 pesos for both. That is about $14 USD. Then we went to a local restaurant of course to have more pasta. This time we had pizza. It tasted so yummy. The pepperoni here is a little different, it´s more like salami. We had a liter of wine. It was a lot. It seemed like it never ended.

Before heading back we played some fusbol. At first it was Tim and me, but then two local kids joined the game, Luciana and Jairo. The girl was about 8 years old and she´d get soooooooooooooooooooooooo excited when she scored. She´d scream every time GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAL. So cute. I was so buzzed all I did was laugh. I sucked a fusbol. But I managed to block few times to avoid more goals. We rotated players. At the end it was the girls against the boys. The boys won. I had so much fun.

The next morning we drove south some more before heading back to Salta. We went to a place called Tafi del Valle, were over looks to misty mountains. It was incredible to see the environment to change from sunny and cool to misty and overcast. Nice little town. Eveyone had their rain gear. It wasn´t raining but the constant mist was enough to get your cloth a little wet. We had lunch there, some empanadas and tamales. The tamale was pretty good. It was very similar to Nicaraguan tamales, similar taste.

The drive back was just as beautiful. We saw more gorgeous mountains and rock formations of different shades of colors. There were some that had formations of things. Among the ones we saw were "el sapo" (the frog), "el anfiteatro"(the anphitheater) and the "garganta del diablo" (devil´s throat).

What an amazing two days. Today is our last day in Argentina. We´ve been here about a month. We´re headed to Bolivia. I´m sad to leave but excited to see a new country. Other travelers say it´s really different from Argentina.

We only have one more month in South America. I can believe it. =)
Ana