Salta, a jewel in the Andes

Che boludos, como va?
We left the lively and noisy Buenos Aires and headed to Salta, which is in the North East of Argentina. The city is in the middle of the Andes and one immediately notice the different accent, different ethnicity, food, etc. We also noticed that there were lots of teenagers either with kids or pregnant.

We decided to rent a car instead of joining an organized tour, there was no need for a guide and having a car gave us lots of freedom which in a place like Salta is priceless.



The first day we drove South visiting Los Valles Calchaquies y la Quebrada de las Conchas. The colours of the rocks are surreal.


The peace of this place was a perfect change of subject in the trip. In some places we didn’t see any human being in miles.















Next day we slept in a modest hotel in Tilcara and visited el Cerro de los 7 colores(no need for explanation) and the Great Salt Lake where we found so far one of the most dramatic landscapes. I have so many pictures to choose.


This is the 7 colors peak in Purmamarca.

Some of the places allowed very litle mistakes while driving...

We loved the fact that Salta region is still not a developed tourist attraction, although new hotels, spas, etc are being developed. Probably it will lose part of its identity in a few years.

Finally we got back to Salta and took the Teleferico to the top of the “cerro” and caught this

amazing column of light hovering over the city at dusk.


And as if the camera decided it couldn’t take a better picture anymore, it jumped from the tripod, fell two meters to committ suicide.

My brother still thinks it was just a gust of wind. I prefer the first version it is more romantic. Anyway, luckily it was my brother’s camera.



Next destination was Cordoba and because we couldn’t find any reasonable flight we chose to travel by bus. Buses in Argentina are great; the seats are like business class.

The bus left late in the evening and the idea was to sleep all the way. The driver tortured us with 4 different videos of My hips don’t lie of Shakira and continued with all her discography.

It was time to accept the offer of some sleeping pills my brother brought from Spain. I have never tried them before. Apparently a doctor gave them to him, and they are used in mental hospitals to keep the inmates calm. I have to say that they did their job perfectly and we slept like babies for the whole 8 hours.




We were disappointed with Cordoba. There was nothing interesting there, although I enjoyed a lot a street chess game with some local masters. I opened with the Queen's gambit, which always causes confusion and even though the crowd were teasing me I managed to secure a victory with a beautiful check mate.


The very same day we were supposed to depart to Mendoza. This time in a suite bus, we were quite excited to see what it was like. We had the tickets and everything but we forgot to change the time zone from Salta and missed it. There were no more buses and we had to get back to the hostel we had rent. It was very hot and noisy and I decided to have half of one of those magic sleeping pills.
We managed to get the last two seats in bus for next day. It was Friday and everybody was travelling for the weekend and holidays. This time the bus driver entertained us with some kind of weird sci fi movie in French: Good bless the sleeping pills. I tried a different brand this time, I am scared to become addicted.

As soon as we arrived we went to the agency were we booked the rafting in the Mendoza river. It was advertised as class III-IV, and it was a fun experience.



We visited Mendoza in the evening, it seems like wealthy city. They produce a lot of wine in this region. We don’t have much time, after losing one day in Cordoba, so we took a bus the same night to cross the Andes and reach Santiago de Chile.

I am looking forward to see the contrast between the two countries and change the diet, I had eaten meat every single day since I have been in Argentina.