Relaxing in Salta

So far this trip we've been on a schedule in order to get Mel back to Buenos Aires by the 14th for her flight home. This also coincided with a visit from Jules Heaton, a close friend of mine from uni who's been travelling the world working on yachts for the last couple of years. She was due to arrive in BA on the 15th. Things changed a little when Mel left us in Tupiza and flew from Salta in order to spend more time in BA, so Bec and I decided to use the extra days to visit Salta and Cordoba on the way through.

I think all the restless nights on buses and early mornings on the Salt Flats took a toll on us because over the few days that followed, we relished in resting and chilling out and didn't do a whole lot of touristy things. In saying that, we weren't completely lazy...

The northwestern city of Salta gave us an intro to the impressive hostel breakfast standard in Argentina. We've become accustomed to the stock standard stale bread and jam for breakfast, tea or coffee if you're lucky, rarely milk. Here, we were welcomed with delicious little pastries - some filled with apple, some strawberry, some dulce de leche (like caramel), and I had a couple of cups of tea. We've since discovered this is common in hostels here, so I'll have try hard not to make that a morning ritual if I want to avoid a more permanent reminder of Argentina!

Keeping to the topic of food, we ate well in Salta and loved sitting in the very European-like cafes set on the footpaths of the main square, enjoying the sunshine and the gorgeous colonial architecture (that's Bec enjoying the view). I had my first salad in who knows when, a real treat. To walk off all that food we climbed Mont San Bernardo which was something like 1178 steps, a mean feat when we could have taken a cable car. It was a stinking hot day so we didn't look our best when we reached the top but the iceblock and the view made it all worthwhile and softened the blow when we were told the cable car was having technical difficulties and we'd have to walk down. I guess it could have been worse. We could have been one of the people stuck in the car at the time.

We also went to the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology which displayed three more frozen Inca children who'd been sacrificed 500 years ago on Mount Llullaillaco, near the Chilean border. Turns out Junita the ice-maiden in Arequipa wasn't alone! This museum was much the same as the one in Arequipa, however it was difficult to fully enjoy it as the commentary had not been translated into English. Time for some Spanish lessons me thinks!