Salta, Argentina

After the 12 hour overnight bus ride from Cordoba, we arrived in Salta about 8.30am and made our way on foot to our hostel. It's a small place but seems ok so far. Later we walked around town taking in some local sights before a late lunch and then on to take the cable car up to a good vantage point over the city which was great.

We had an early evening ciesta before heading out to La Viejo Estacion after 11pm for dinner and to take in some authentic Argentinian folk music and dancing. After dinner we moved to another bar nearby for some more contemporary music at Cafe Del Tiempo before finally heading home at about 3am. It was a top night and I am constantly amazed by how many locals are out eating and drinking so late on a Wednesday!

Today we slept in until very late after our long day yesterday. In the afternoon we wandered around town and looked into the train trip to San Antonio which leaves at 7am and returns at 11pm but it seemed expensive and exhausting so we decided to give it a miss. In the early evening we booked in to go horseriding tomorrow on a gaucho cattle station and stay one night. We also headed out for dinner about 9pm to Cafe Del Tiempo for dinner then home to bed.

We were up fairly early but we'd still not received a confirmation for our intended horseriding today so Sandra gave them a ring and luckily all was ok and they picked us up about 9.30. It was a bumpy and hilly ride to the cattle station but great scenery and nice to get out of a city for a change. In addition to Sandra and I there was also a Dutch architect and an English Spanish student booked in for horseriding. About 11am we headed off for our first ride, the horses were very well behaved and the scenery was pretty amazing, especially the candelabra cacti which I had never seen before (except in road runner cartoons!). On the way back we also stopped by a little town church and cemetary which was pretty cool (see photo of Sandra with church in background). We galloped back to the station the last few hundred metres which was fun and then unsaddled the horses and had a great lunch of grilled meats, salad, sweet potatoes and red wine.

After lunch we played a few games including slingshot, a coin throwing game where you get points for accuracy, and finally we all tried our hands at lasooing which is actually not as hard as it first appears. Was a lot of fun (and the wine helped). By late afternoon it was getting cool again but we jumped on the horses again for another ride and got back just before sunset. In the evening we farewelled Isabel and Rhia who were headed back to Salta while we settled into our room. My god it was freezing at night! We enjoyed a basic meal of chicken stew and red wine for dinner then sat in front of the fire for a little while before heading to bed. One of the coldest nights of the trip so far, but all in all a great day!

We awoke at the cattle station and boy was is still bloody freezing! We opted to skip breakfast and have a slow start to the day, and eventually emerged around 10.30am. We enjoyed a coffee as sun emerged over the hills and finally started to warm up the valley and not long afterwards new horseriders were arriving and we were back in the car to be dropped in Salta. Back in Salta by 11.30 or so we showered, changed and took it easy for a while before taking a final look around town. We had a late lunch of pizza at a cafe outside in the afternoon sun and then back to the hostel. We're due to be up very early tomorrow for our bus to San Pedro de Atacame in Chile so we didn't have a very exciting last night, but we were both happy with that after such a long (but great) day yesterday.