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Another shortish and sweet entry ...
We were both really excited finally getting to Argentina. We arrived to our hostel plus a fellow traveller Brendan we had met on the bus. Our hostel was a little way out of town but very clean and homely and after such a long journey (18 hours) we were happy just to have arrived with the promise of somewhere to relax. Our first night set the standard for Salta, even though we were really tired we headed to the hostel bar for a beer before heading to bed, at 2ish the next morning we were still sitting chatting to other travellers who were staying there, Emma and Chris were from the UK, Patrick from Ireland and Kerry and Reid from Australia. The hostel had this lovely courtyard which was a real easy spot to sit and watch the evening pass. They serve big bottles of beer much like big bottles of bulmers, we thought we were on to a winner when we ordered one as the barman charged us 15 pesos. That works out at about 2.50 euro. Mind you the next day we found the same beers in the supermarket for 7 pesos!!!!!!!!!!!! You can imagine our delight followed by dissapointment when we tried to buy one and the lady at the cash desk tried to take them off us. We knew it was something more than an ID check but in the end it was so much hassle trying to understand what we were being told we left them behind us. The lady in the queue behind us even tried to use actions to help the explanation along but it was lost on us. So beerless and not happy about it we walked back to the hostel and decided to chance our arm in the local shop to see if they would sell us beer. Turns out its a big conveluted process - most of the shops that sell beer return the bottles to the manufacturer so when they sell you bottles of beer your required to return the empties. The guy at the local shop just charged us a deposit which we got back when we returned the bottles the next day. So the woman in the supermarket wouldnt sell them to us because we werent from the area and obvioulsy didnt look like the type to return our bottles..... the cheek! To me all issues could have been averted if they just put a bloody sign up in the supermarket but no, it must be like groundhog day for them trying to explain it.
Our first full day in Salta we decided to get our bearings and take a walk around the area which led us straight to the company who run the cable car. It was daunting to look at the cars going up the mountain but we both knew it was a travel must! When you get on the car to start with, it doesnt stop - its a continuous loop so you have to hop in as its moving that was enough to get my nerves going. It brought us up and up and up over the streets to the side of Mount Saint Bernardo offering stunning views the further up we went. At the top of the mountain (same story) you hope off before its too late and can take a walk around a smallish park like area. The views are stunning and we were lucky because it was a clear day. Salta is much larger than we had originally thought and the views showed that off perfectly. Going down was a bit of a trauma as I remembered at the top that Im not really that mad for travelling down steep slopes when you add to the equation a little metal car hanging off a string....... I rest my case.
After the cable car we decided we needed some tasty food to reward our adventure. We walked through some local markets and towards the end of our window shopping we found one market that had some restaurants. We took a walk over to see what was on offer and as happens everywhere we were bombarded with waiters telling us the specials of the day all in rapid Spanish ofcourse. We were politely cajoled into one particular eatery and this lovely young girl had the job of telling us the menu. These type of little cafes dont have menues to read from you just eat what you get of a listing of daily specials. We had no idea what we were being offered but there wasnt a chance we were going to admit it. So we did what any sensible person would... we blagged it! We knew that she was giving us a listing of options so we just jumped in at a random point with a confident "si por favour", we definately heard "papas fritas" and "ensalade" so we nodded at those and then there was another list of items that we couldnt make out so we waited as she ran through them (we didnt want to sound to eager) and then nodded at another random intervile. The waitress seemed happy enough and headed off towards the kitchen. I turned to Rob and said " any idea what weve just ordered other than chips and salad?" "Nope" he said with a big smile on his face. This is what we had been waiting for the excitement of ordering god knows what and seeing what made its way to our plate and more importantly if we could identify what it was when it showed up!
As it turned out we couldnt!! :) It was a huge and delicious mystery meat, it came with chips, lettuce, tomato, carrotts, rice, green beans and baby potatoes! What a mix. Rob thinks it could have been dog but I have it on good authority that it could have been pigeon! It was called Milenese which normally is either a peice of beef or llama bashed really thinly deep fried in herbs and spices. It was so tasty and we scoffed it hoping that it wasnt really anything to nasty.
Other than going up the cable car eating mystery meat and seeing some beautiful churches Salta is kind of low on action. But that worked out ok because the gang that were staying in the hostel more than made up for it. Each evening we would hangout chatting, having some beers in the courtyard. On the last night there the hostel treated us to a lovely Asado. An asado is a mixture of BBQ meat, empeñadas and salad and the mandatory consumption of beer. At 1.30am we played with the idea of hitting the bowling alley. The Argentinians believe that you dont really need to sleep when you can be out having fun instead so everywhere is open until ridiculous o´clock. It got a little late for the bowlling alley in the end so at 2.30am we went to a club. This is pretty early by Argentina standard. When we hit the club it was pretty quiet but by 4.00am it had started to fill up. By 5.00am it was jammers - no fire saftey control in this club!! and by 6.30am everyone was finally thinking it might be time to head home. What was really cool about the night was that the barman from the hostel had come with us and for the night we chatted and danced away. We both thought that was pretty cool of him to hang out with the group.
The next day we had to check out of the room for 10.00am, bearing in mind we got home for 7.00am you can imagine we werent at our best and had to wait around until 4pm for our 24hour bus to Iguazu. Soooooo many things were wrong with that day, our slightly fuzzy heads, the fact that we had made ourselves promise not to spend any money sucked because we couldnt buy any trashy food, that we were about to embark on a 24 hour bus trip....eck! We were sad to say goodbye to the gang at our hostel I´m sure we could have gone another few nights of party antics before we would have had to take a night off but we headed off to Iguazu looking forward to seeing the falls after all we had heard about them.
Taste sensation : Mystery meat later known as Milenese, Empeñadas (similar to a pasty but tasting slightly different some served with boiled eggs, some with veg) Asado - sounds high falutin but its really just a BBQ served with empeñadas with salad and roasted veg and is bloomin lush.
Music : Hard Fi, Cultura Profetica, Blur (randomly) and House of Pain. The music scene in Salta seems to be trapped in the mid 90´s with loads of latino pop thrown in for good measure.
Until next time...
- comments
mia & martin Mmmm mystery meat..... :) miss you guys, keep up the blogs, looking forward to the next one ASAP please. x
Geraldine Ah, I can almost smell the asado and longing for a taste! Great to see you're enjoying your adventures :-) Looking forward to the next update. Big hugs xxx
Craig Hey guys, another great blog yuo wrote. The thing is, you both look so young that is why they refused to sell you the beers. Milenese? I still can't figure out what you guys ate, and I googled the word! I love the Argentinians', "no need to sleep when you can be having fun", attitude to life. Sounds like the adventure is getting better all the time! Love to both and keep up the good work. x