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Our first day in Salta involved walking around town, and checking out the place. On eating lunch at one of the plaza cafes, it is noticable how the people look that little more indiginous than places like Cordoba or Mendoza, since it`s one of the last Argentinian towns on the way to Bolivia.
Ben, Phil and I went for an explore of town, and took a ride on the cable car to a view point overlooking the city. It wasn´t that impressive but it was cheap.
That evening, we went to see a perfomance at a restaurant in the more lively end of town. There was some local dancing and music, which was good to see. The group of us enjoyed ourselves as we were merry drinking wine and having a laugh. Toward the end of the show, the dancers invited people from the audience up to dance with them in front of the stage. By the end, I think all of the people in the room had danced once or twice. It was great fun but we couldn´t stay out too late, as we´d hired a couple of cars to start a road trip with the next day.
Salta Road Trip - Day 1
We got up early the next day to leave on our road trip of the Salta region. There were six of us; myself, Phil, Sander, Ben, Daan (another Dutch guy) and Suzanne (a Swiss girl). We had two cars and I took the reigns of one of them for the first few hours of driving. I had never driven in another country before but it didn´t take long to get used to driving on the other side of the road. Of course, the driver´s position in the car is on the other side, so when I tried to change gear for the first time, I reached with my left hand towards the door! Realising this was stupid, I quickly got used to chaning gear with my right hand.
The driving wasn´t a problem until a dog ran out in front of the car Sander was driving in front. For some reason, the dogs want to run after the cars, barking fiercly at the tyres. I´ve never seen this in England, only South America. The dog got out of the way of the front car, only to run behind it, putting it straight in my path. A quick serve of a couple of metres to the right meant we missed the dog. Had there not been any room, there would no doubt have been one more dead dog on the road. The dogs out here are stupid, and they only learn their lesson once they´ve been hit. I´ve seen so many dogs limping around, or missing part of their leg.
As we drove into the countryside, we headed toward Cafayate, another wine producing area. Along the way, we stopped off at some of the sightseeing points. At times, we would pick up hitchhikers, as it´s much more accepted as a mode of transport in Argentina than England. Various things we saw were "El Obilisco", "El Sapo" (the frog) and other strange rock formations. One particularly impressive one was "El garganta del diablo", or the Devil´s Throat, which was a weird gorge into the rock, with a 45 degree slope to a sheer cliff face. We continued driving until we reached Cafayate, which was where we slept for the first night.
Salta Road Trip - Day 2
We awoke early-ish to be on our way to some old Inca ruins in a town called Quilmes, also the name of a beer out here. The ruins were big enough but not really that impressive, so after a few pictures and sharing some maté tea, we were on our way again.
We drove back from Quilmes to Cafayate, to see a parade of gauchos on horseback, riding through the village. The roads were straight and desolate, but for the vineyards and mountains either side. The scenery was fantastic and the fact the sun was beating down made it that bit better.
We drove for miles, changing drivers every few hours, when in the afternoon, the road deteriorated into dirt track. The hitchhiker we`d picked up told us it would be like this for the next several hours, so after an initial disappointment, we adopted a ´shrug of the shoulders´ attitude and powered on.
Every now and then we stopped for a photo opportunity, so it was a surprise when our first car stopped again for another photo session so quickly after the last. Then we realised why...at the side of the road in an incredibly dusty patch were some football goals. Sander got his football out of his bag and along with the hitchhikers, had a kick about in the desert. It was good fun but time was of the essence, so after a few minutes, we continued. At this point, I took the wheel to get my first experience of the dirt track road. It was quite fun as you have to think much more than on normal asphalt road, since you have to avoid large stones and holes in the ground. Oh, and the car was only a VW Polo, not a 4 by 4, so we had to take it easy at times.
After driving along winding mountain roads for a while, climbing up and up, we turned a corner to see clouds beneath us, stretching for miles. It was an awesome sight and as we carried on and descended to the cloud level again, driving conditions became difficult. We pressed on to a town closer to Salta, called Chicoana. Once we had found a hostel, we went to get some food from the small plaza in the centre of town. That weekend had seen some celebrations since it was the weekend of 9 July, a date of independence for Argentina. On the plaza itself, there were people selling hotdogs and holding a tombola. Naturally, we all had a go, got talking to the locals and had good fun! They were really friendly but we said our goodbyes so we could get some food.
It was in the small restaurant the idea was born for us to eat 100 empanadas. Empanadas are like pasties but smaller, usually filled with chicken, ham, or cheese. Very tasty too!
Salta Road Trip - Day 3
We got up early again as we still had lots of driving to do. This time we would head north into the next province to see some of the best scenery yet.
I took over the driving again, which was really enjoyable. The road looked newly laid and the lack of any other traffic lent a certain post-apocalyptic feel to the place, reminding me of one of those ´choose your own storyline´ adventure books I read when I was young, Freeway Freedom Fighter.
The continuous mounatin range to our left was bathed in a number of different colours, showing the different minerals present. Sometimes there would be five or six colours together, against the red stone of the mountain. To our right were hill sides covered with cactus plants.
A few miles along, there was a police checkpoint, marking our entrance into the next province. Phil, Ben and Susie were in the car behind and had noticed just in time, to allow Phil to take over driving from Ben, who did not have his driving licence with him due to indiscretions back in Belgium.
After much driving, we arrived at one of the National Parks of the region to take a walk over a few hours through woodland. It wasn´t the best scenic walk I´d done but it was a good opportunity to chat to Susanne and get to know her a bit better. The others had gone off in pursuit of owls but we preferred to keep walking along the riverside.
Our initial plan to sleep in Jujuy changed to a return to Salta since we missed our turn off. We got back to Salta to watch Argentina play in the semi final of the Copa America and win 4-0. The following morning we returned the cars and made our plans to move on.
The other guys would leave the next day to Bolivia, whereas Susanne and I made plan to travel to Iguasu together. The night we said goodbye to the other lads, Susanne and I went out to the bars and clubs district, and found a cool bar and stayed there until around 3am.
The next day we got on our 2pm bus bound for Iguassu, which would take around 20 hours. We expected at least some decent movies but instead, they played early 90s music videos, such as Dr. Alban, Ace of Base and Haddaway, sometimes with different music playing over the top. Then they played the supposedly unscripted music video of some pretentious South American band doing a live set, who were more for the theatre than a ´rock band´.
Then in the night, I had another ´night terror´ - a nightmare followed by me waking up and shouting at the ghosts I thought were present. Susanne woke me up but I just wonder what the other 40 people on the bus thought!!
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