During the past two weeks our travels kept us in extremely dry places, such as Bolivia and Northern Chile, with our views dominated by rock, volcanoes and endless sand. But as we crossed the Andes into Argentina everything slowly turned green. The mountains were green, the valleys were lush and the rivers full. This was wine country. Adrie was very happy.
You can clearly see how the landscape turns from brown to green on this Google Earth picture. Yellow indicates the bus route we were supposed to take, blue is the flight we eventually took and red is the Uyuni Salt Flat route through Bolivia
We landed in Salta about 14 hours after we should have arrived if everything had gone to plan, but at least we were back on schedule. The only thing I desperately wanted to do now was catch up on my sleep. The last two days have been a bit of a Calama-ty but at least it is better than being at work, right?!
When I (finally) woke up I discovered Adrie has already been researching the best ice-cream places in Salta. Maybe this could turn out for the best after all. We headed out for a walk around Salta during the early evening. It is a lovely colonial town with a very pleasant feel about it.
We didn’t want to make the same mistake and be the first people in a restaurant for dinner again, but also didn’t feel like waiting until 10pm. So what can you do to pass the time on a Saturday night in Salta? Yes – you guessed it! Get a haircut. So that is exactly what I did. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out as I gesticulated in broken Spanish above the sounds of Guns ‘n Roses blaring over the speakers. But she did a great job for a super cheap price.
Dinner was obviously steak and Malbec and it was delicious. I think if I could take something back to London it would have to be some of Argentina’s steaks… and the hairdresser of course.
I was still exhausted the following day despite the afternoon nap and a good night’s sleep. Luckily we didn’t have big plans today, only a few small jobs. Job 1 – get ice cream, job 2 – go up in the cable car to check out the view, job 3 – repeat job 1. Once our three jobs were successfully completed the only thing left was an afternoon nap. I love being on holiday.
On our last evening we went to a restaurant recommendation of a friend, Basak – La Vieja Estacion. It was an Argentinian restaurant with a twist. They had a live band with traditional gaucho dancing that gave you a feel for Argentinian culture. The meal was very good; you could carve my steak with a spoon. The dancing and band were great too although the songs were very traditional so were lost on us a little bit, but we had fun. We had to leave around midnight because we have another early start tomorrow.
I would love to go to La Vieja Estacion again. Such a great place. Have fun..
I share your view on the small jobs! Still need to figure out how to properly say “Can I taste the ice cream first?” in Spanish!