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We arrived in salta on the saturday before easter sunday and decided to actually try and do something over the next few days before we finally left argentina and headed closer to bolivia. So after a night out on saturday we decided to try white water rafting and horse riding over the next few days. On sunday we took it easy having a bit of a wander and trying to book some tours. We finally settled on half a days horse riding the next day and rafting on wednesday.
We got up fairly early the next day before being taken to the ranch for breakfast. Horse riding has a massive tradition in argentina with the legendary gauchos so we were glad we had been finally able to fit it in. Once our horses had been saddled up we hopped on (with the help of a step ladder) and headed out. I had a special breed of argentine horse which has a different way of walking so you dont feel the movement as much, not that i gave it a chance to go much faster than a walk. After heading through a few fields we thought we were about to cross a stream but instead we walked up it. It was quite fun trying to dodge the branches as the trees were quite close above. My horse kept putting its head down and everyone told me to hold the reigns tighter which only made it worse until someone told me that the mouthpiece was really sharp so i was probably causing the horse a lot of pain. No wonder she didnt like me! We wandered back to the ranch and had an amazing bbq (parilla) for lunch, with as much wine as we could drink. That night we met up with some friends, Dan Tara and Linus for a good dinner and to enjoy our bottle of wine from Mendoza before they left the next day.
The next day we headed out of Salta to a small village for a short hike in a nature reserve which afforded great views of salta. On dan and taras advice we had gone in flip flops and soon wondered why the park ranger looked at us funny. The whole way was pretty slippy and flip flops probably werent the best attire! It was a nice walk though and it was nice to do some light exercise. We had to get up early for white water rafting the next day so ate our left overs and headed to bed. The drive to the river the next day seemed to take for ever and we were glad when we finally caught a glimpse of water and then the dam which controls the rapids. As we prepared to set off, one of the girls we were with was talking about these flies in bolivia which bite your legs, drawing blood and leaving bites that itch for weeks, as we looked down, our ankles were covered in blood and we had just experienced what she was talking about. We headed out into the water along a valley between the mountains. The rapids were only class 2 to 3 so they werent too scary but we had a load of fun and got absolutely soaked. The scenery was gorgeous, if only we had a camera! We had lunch before the long slog back to town. We headed out that night for our last steak and red wine, before leaving for san pedro de atacama in chile early the next morning!
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