Salta (Argentina) - Week 32

23rd - 28th April

So we got on the bus from Puerto Iguazu at 9.30pm very tired and had a surprisingly good sleep overnight. We woke up at 7.30am very pleased with ourselves that the journey was only 26 hours and we had already done 10 - no probs! Then the coach stopped at about 10am and we looked out of the front window to see a line of stationary traffic and a couple of tractors blocking the road ahead. It was the cotton farmers on strike and they were holding the traffic up until someone came to discuss the situation with them. And so we waited, and we waited, and we waited. After a couple of hours we were starving so Katie befriended a local Argentinian and her 3 year old daughter and gate-crashed an asado (very embarrrassing because I thought they were selling sausages and they were actually for the protesters but they gave me one free anyway...).

Note the 15+ mile queue behind our bus.

At 2pm we eventually had news that someone was coming to negotiate with the farmers at 4pm so we had to wait until then. 6pm came and apparently the negotiations had not been successful but it was okay because the bus company was sending another bus from the other direction to arrive at 8pm and we just had to carry our bags accross the blockade. And then 10pm came and no bus so everyone went to sleep. We all woke up at 7am and finally at 10am, 24 HOURS LATER, the tractors moved and we were on our way!!! Absolutely unbelievable. The wierdest thing was the reaction of the locals on the bus, ie: none. They all just slept through practically the whole thing and no-one batted an eyelid.

Anyway, the journey continued without note from then onwards (oooh, except for James winning a bottle of wine in the bingo!) and we arrived in Salta 25 hours late at 1am - 51 hours after leaving Iguazu. Crazy.

We stayed in a nice hotel on the main plaza (called Hotel Plaza, originally enough) and spent our first day sorting out some tours and visiting the churches and museums. In one museam there dispalyed Inca mummies found in the high andes. Apparently they used to sacrifice children to their gods, mummified them and buried them on top of the highest mountains in the andes at almost 7000m asl!!

On Friday we went on a tour with two other people to the north of Argentina in the Jujuy Region, through Humahuaca Gorge - which was gorgeous, whey-hey!! Salta and Jujuy are in fertile valleys at about 300m asl but as soon as you go north you climb quickly through the clouds to about 2500m and into the gorge. Without the clouds trapped in the valleys below the gorge is very dry with lots of huge catus and little dry villages with people scavaging around trying to grow crops and raise llama. The gorge runs 150km all the way up into the Andean plateau at the Bolivian border with beautiful rock formations. The most famous is in Purmamarca called, imaginatively, the hill of seven colours:


We then carried on north to Humahuaca, where the locals put up a big battle against the spanish when Argentina fought for independence. They fooled the Spanish armies travelling south from Bolivia by evacuating the town, burning everthing to the ground, destroying all their food and water supplies, and best of all, putting their ponchos and sombraros on the catus growing on the surrounding hills. The spanish thought it was the locals waiting to fight and so wasted all their ammunition firing at cactus!!

That evening we had to move hotels as there was a woman with healing hands coming to town and everywhere was packed with argentinians that had travelled far and wide to come and see her! After checking into a nice hostel round the corner, we went out to one of the peñas (pub, basically), for a lovely parilla and live folkloric music which was pretty entertaining.


Our next activity was very out of character. We were recommended at HORSE riding tour in the hills south of Salta by a Irish couple we met in Paraty, Brazil. They said they weren´t horsey but really enjoyed it, so we thought that if we were going to get on a horse on this trip, we might as well do it here.


The farm, owned by Enrique, a real-live gaucho, was in a beautiful setting surrounded by tabacco and vegetable fields. He gave us two very docile horses and so we felt at ease straight away. Also, the thought of coming back at lunchtime to a huge outdoor parilla (Argentine BBQ) with lots of wine softened the blow!


We walked along the lane with the guide through some fields, but soon the guide was getting bored with slow pace and was urging us to try trotting. Well all i can say is i hope i still can have kids - multiple blows to the goolie region is not my idea of fun!! Apparently you are supposed to rise and fall in time with the horse, in a beautiful symbiotic partnership. That was not what happened - just pain. Katie got the idea well and wanted to go faster, she didn´t have the pain to deal with i suppose.

Juan, Enrique´s mate doing a guacho trick - hmmm!

The food when we got back was fantastic, the wine flowed, the scenery dazzled. We impressed our hosts with our gluttony, pounds of top beef eaten. These people really take their meat and red wine seriously. Katie practically got a standing ovation when she picked up the ribs and started gnawing the bones!! James asked Eduardo to teach him the secrets of Argentinian BBQing - so get ready for some top quality BBQs when we get back! Being the geek he is he took a series of photos to build himself an exact replica of Enrique´s BBQ set-up when we get home...

...serious business the Argentinian BBQ!!

We got back from the lovely day in the country absolutely rat-arsed and Katie can't remember going to bed. James wasn't too much better and managed to set the alarm for 6pm rather than 6am so we woke up at 6.35 am the next morning with 10 mins to get dressed, pack, check-out and get a taxi to the bus station. JUST made it and Katie had to have a sick bag for the first hour of the journey...!

Books we read: Mr Nice by Howard Marks - fascinating book about the famous cannabis smuggler but was intensely annoyed by his views, don't get me started!