Salta

Salta is a the Capital of the province by the same name, in the north west of Argentina. It takes a good 20hrs by bus from Buenos Aires, but the buses are so comfortable, you, back in Europe, can not even start to comprehend!

Arriving in Salta after finding a little empty but very nice hostel, we set out to organise our next day, looking for inspiration in travel agency. We ended up doing a two day tour in the northern part of the region. We first followed the trail of the "tren a las nubes" (train to the clouds, just sounds more romantic is spanish), a train that takes 17hrs and goes up to 4,200 meters above see level. So to fight altitude sickness, people suck on coca leaves, it's kind of illegal in Argentina, but shops still advertise them on huge panels outside... It's an amazing architectural achievement for the 1920's that has never really fulfilled its aim of commercially linking Argentina to Chile and is now just for tourists.
On the way we all stopped to see incredible views, ruins from the pre-Inca period, of cities built in the middle of nothing, but on top of hills so that attackers could be spotted days before they arrived.
The train arrives in San Antonio de las Cobres (Arg), we had lunch there, little kids dont ask you for coins there, they want to give you little rocks they pick up from the floor and then don't ask for anything but expect coins. The standard argentine answer seems to be: " i don't want to steal your heritage. Its important that you keep it." So yeah little rocks are their heritage there. There is not much more there, but still... In these mining towns, men leave from Monday to Saturday to work in the mines, so mostly women live there on weekdays. Now with the development of tourism, women are busy creating artesanias, and have no more time to look after the children, it is a big problem there, children are not educated, don't learn skills anymore and the people are impoverishing.

We then moved on to las Salinas Grandes, 120km² of salt, at over 3000m above sea level. Just like everything in this region and Argentina more generally, it makes you feel tiny, so unimportant.

We had an amazing day with the guide making jokes about our beauty, giving me paper flowers, telling me poems. The gauchos (sort of an equivalent of a cowboy, but way, way cooler) say and write poems. They are said in a way (intonation) that made me think of slam in the US, and they talk about respect, injustice, work, morals. But they are traditional poems, that have been shared from generation to generation.

Trying to keep it short... We stayed a night in Purmamarca, a tiny village with nothing, it looked like St Pé those who know, will know, so peaceful, we both felt comfortable, the people (watching football in a bar) we really friendly. Good to be away from craziness of Buenos Aires for a bit. The region is famous for all the different types and colors of sediments, one moutain, the 7 colores is red orange yellow green blue purple and loads of shades of all of them. :D

In Humahuaca, the children don't give you rocks, they ask if you want them to tell you a poem. Better heritage?

When we got back to Salta, we visited the city, a very friendly atmosphere, with cafés, bars around a big place in the warmth of the evening... we french people know how to enjoy that!

After pondering an entire night whether to go or not in rented cars with an English, a Brasilian, a Spanish, an Israeli, a Argentine and 2 others, we decided, our lives were worth more and didn't want to die falling off a mountain in a car driven by a crazy spanish dude... So we rented our own car, for 2 days. We first left for Cachi a little village west of Salta, the route was incredible, I don't even know how to describe this, 3000m above sea level, the view changing constantly from really dry moutains to really green ones, to complete plains of grass to little hills of dust and rocks to mountains of sandy dirt sculpted by water and the wind. The most impressive 100km in my life, neither of us could believe what we saw.

We got a text from our guide from the first day (with who we had also gone out one night and it was made clear nothing would happen) said he couldn't stop thinking about me, where i was... So of course we told him to come (making it clear, again, that nothing would happen). He did the next day he was there, our very own personal guide. It was great having him showing us the greatest places, explaining the culture, the history... getting us free wine, cheap hotels... and no commitment!

The trip from Cachi to Cafayate was no where as exciting though as the day before. On the way back to Salta there are loads of formations in the rock, the most impressive being the amphitheare, that has an amazing sound system, all very nice! Very hard to describe the size and everything... just loco!