So it's been a few days since I have updated anything now! Been so busy that I haven't been able to do a blog the entire time I was in Salta.

So Salta… to begin with we stayed in a little bed and breakfast there for two nights which was good…bread and croissants for breakfast every morning here which is annoying cos of the carbs so we have ended up buying our own cereal no matter how bad we feel not eating the food they give us!

So the first day in Salta we just hung around in the city and went up the cable car… we bought return tickets to go up and back down and to see the city from the top but I really needed a walk after all our time on buses so managed to persuade sebba to walk down with me which was awesome! We just explored the city this day which was great to just look around; it's a beautiful city with the centre plaza just amazing with the buildings. It gets so busy at night there too which is crazy! Given though that most people here don't eat diner till 930 or so maybe it isn't so surprising…

So on the first day we organized tours for the next 6 days.

The next was a Tour to the mountains - the train to the clouds is what most people do in Salta but it only runs on Saturdays and we will be gone from Salta by then so we did it by car. Great sights to see but HUGE day. We were up at 6am, and didn't get home till after 8pm I think after doing over 540km. The mountains were amazing and the sights were something I have never seen and can't believe I did see here! At the highest point on this day we went to 4100 feet and its crazy the altitude there and the difference you feel that high! I bought an alpaca scarf from one of the little towns up in the mountains; some only have 5 or 7 families in each village so it's crazy how they survive so far away from everything. Among the sights was the 7 coloured hill. The mountains there are coloured differently due to minerals in the soil and there is one hill which was really brightly coloured it was amazing. I think there was red, green, yellow, white… and some mixes I think. With the minerals being Sulpha, Iron, Calcium and Copper. Our driver was named Pavlo and we were with two other people in a little crammed jeep. One chick couldn't speak much Spanish, and the guy was from Amsterdam… told us stories about Bolivia which made me think we have to be pretty careful... but I think he actually might have just been not cautious enough.. In which case of course stuff happens to you! So that was the highlight. After we got back and were stuffed we still had to move to another hostel cos the one we were in Los Rejas was full, so we moved to one up the road a bit which turned out great cos we got a private room with private bathroom and shower for the same price so that rocked. We stayed there two nights. We also then needed to go to the supermarket in the city centre to get food for a few days, and then pay more off our tours. So needless to say by the time we went to bed that night at midnight or so we were stuffed!

Ok SO the BEST day in Salta was following the train to clouds tour. It was a tour to Cafayate which is a wine region. We got picked up early (we were up at 630am again) and straight away knew we would have fun cos we had an UNREAL tour guide - Hassan! He was helping us learn Spanish and improving us all the way. He also let me hook up my ipod (I was dubbed DJ Kirby) so we had some great tunes for the way. He kept asking me to write down the artists from the country music which matt had on there which was funny… loved the country music. So we saw more fantastic sights on the way such as rock formations etc and some of this was up climbing a bit up the rocks which was good to do something outside, and then the other rock formation there was a band and they were playing and it was echoing and was pretty cool. We did some funny stuff on the way like we drank 'Mate' which is an Argentinean custom where one person brings this tea leaves stuff, still not sure what was in it but tasted like tea and tobacco, and they pass it around everyone basically until you have had enough. Along the sights we met another tour guide who after talking to our guide in Spanish which Tribiani eat your heart out. After all this and some more sights we ended up in the town of Cafayate. We did two winery tours and had lunch. Lunch was hilarious cos we were left with the Spanish couple and we don't speak much Spanish and they spoke NO English so us trying to communicate over lunch was hilarious!! Add to this that seb by mistake ordered heaps and heaps of food, and I ordered half a litre of wine with lunch so they thought one of us couldn't stop eating and the other an alcoholic. Im sure we amused them to no end. Made us learn more Spanish though. We had some time in the town and me got the famous wine tasting ice-cream! I got both sorts - white wine, which is Torrontes and is what the region is famous for, as well as Cabernet. Both tasted like sweet wine but was YUMMM J weird stuff but its famous… and need to try out the stuff the places are famous for hahaha.

After lunch we drove home and here comes the fun part of the story… we drove to a dam which is 11,000 hectares wide and was absolutely beautiful. Then I saw BUNGY jumping off the bridge into the water and of course jumped at the chance! Never really wanted to do it before but I needed the adrenaline rush I think. Anyway so after taking about 2 seconds to make the decision to do it I got hooked up and paid my $100 pesos… $30 Aussie approx, and went to the edge…. Looked so much higher just been a mitre higher than the bridge, but I think my diving helped cos it meant I didn't panic or freeze up! I was going to do it backwards and disappointed everyone there by just going forwards… that was all I could take at the time! Haha. Was AWESOME fun and I SCREAMED. I have a video which is good and heaps of pictures so lots to remember. I got dunked too in the water about up to my shoulders which was funny. Great experience and glad I did it… especially there where the surroundings are just so surreal!! So we headed home after that and Hassan gave us his contacts if we need anything else… he ended up being a mate which was good - he is the guy in the orange jacket in our photos. We got back and needed to do more with our tours and found a restaurant which apparently served the best Empanadas in Salta. We had heard this was the city to get them and so had been searching far and wide to find ones we loved! They are like baby pasties sort of, with choices of queso (cheese), pollo (chicken) and carne (meat). So we have eaten them all over Salta now and I must say that the absolute winner was the vegetarian ones I got in Iguazu! So crazy but fun times.

So we got home that night quite late and I was stuffed after the huge two days, add in the adrenaline from the bungy jumping and I could barely function by about 9pm that night. Great day though. We got our itinerary then for the next 4 days which we are heading to Bolivia and the Salt flats there, as well as coloured lagoons, volcanoes etc. great itinerary cos it was ENTIRELY in Spanish!! Haha so we basically saw what we were doing but didn't know how we were going to get from place to place and actually end up in Uyuni which is where we are basing for 3 days. Uyuni is 9 hours from the border of Argentina, and from there Salta is another 8 hours so big day ahead.

So that was Salta. So far that has been my favourite. With the sights and the people we have met, the look of the city etc… I've been stuffed nearly the entire time I was in Salta which was a bit sad but overall it's been a fantastic adventure so far.

Next is Bolivia where things will be more rough, cold, higher, cheaper, and less English if possible from what we have seen already! Fingers crossed for us!!

xo