Getting off the bus, I though Salta immediately had a good feel to it. Not touristly like Puerto Iguazo, but a lot nicer than Resistencia. And that kind of sums it up, really. I found a nice hostal, which had only been operating for a month, and very comfortable for the price. Salta is really pushing tourism, and it shows.
I met Will the next morning, and after dumping his stuff we went for a stroll up Cerro Saint Bernard, overlooking Salta. The city was bigger than we´d though, and is nicely located amongst a cirque of higher mountains and hills. We descended and got some Salteñas (Salta style empanadas, not overly interesting) and tamales (corn and meat mixture steamed in corn leaves - pretty nice) for lunch with a veggie salad. Argentina was really starting to make its meat prominence felt.
There are some really nice little markets in Salta, which we checked out in the afternoon, but after the routine siesta, far more interesting was a fiesta we headed out to that evening. In an outer district of town, we paid an entry fee to access a cordoned off street, where we spent the evening watching float after float heading down the street. It really was a family event, lots of kids around and no alcohol permitted, but it's funny seeing families with young kids out at 1am. All the dancing was great, the kids must practice a lot for an event like this one, but it really seems like it's in their blood.
Day two we headed out to San Lorenzo, which was a dull area with lots of money. After a coffee to sit out a spell of pouring rain, we walked up through the town and up the nearby hill to get a view of the clouds. However - we turned around as soon as we reached the ranger station and were asked to pay a few $ to get in. Absolutely ridiculous. Park entry fees over here are so exorbitant - you can understand the need to restrict numbers somewhere like the Torres del Paine - but this place just drummed in that tourist pay for everything. Anywhere in the Bluies would outshine this dull little hill, and you don't pay a penny for that.
That night, we had, would you believe it, our first steak in Argentina. None of us really felt like it, but we had to get one before leaving the country the next day, or we'd never live it down. I have to say it took me by surprise - not the size, it was absolutely huge as expected - but it was actually really good. While I have had better steaks in Australia, I get the feeling Argentinian parillia's give a more consistently properly cooked steak. That's based on my strong statistical formula of one steak...
I met Will the next morning, and after dumping his stuff we went for a stroll up Cerro Saint Bernard, overlooking Salta. The city was bigger than we´d though, and is nicely located amongst a cirque of higher mountains and hills. We descended and got some Salteñas (Salta style empanadas, not overly interesting) and tamales (corn and meat mixture steamed in corn leaves - pretty nice) for lunch with a veggie salad. Argentina was really starting to make its meat prominence felt.
There are some really nice little markets in Salta, which we checked out in the afternoon, but after the routine siesta, far more interesting was a fiesta we headed out to that evening. In an outer district of town, we paid an entry fee to access a cordoned off street, where we spent the evening watching float after float heading down the street. It really was a family event, lots of kids around and no alcohol permitted, but it's funny seeing families with young kids out at 1am. All the dancing was great, the kids must practice a lot for an event like this one, but it really seems like it's in their blood.
Day two we headed out to San Lorenzo, which was a dull area with lots of money. After a coffee to sit out a spell of pouring rain, we walked up through the town and up the nearby hill to get a view of the clouds. However - we turned around as soon as we reached the ranger station and were asked to pay a few $ to get in. Absolutely ridiculous. Park entry fees over here are so exorbitant - you can understand the need to restrict numbers somewhere like the Torres del Paine - but this place just drummed in that tourist pay for everything. Anywhere in the Bluies would outshine this dull little hill, and you don't pay a penny for that.
That night, we had, would you believe it, our first steak in Argentina. None of us really felt like it, but we had to get one before leaving the country the next day, or we'd never live it down. I have to say it took me by surprise - not the size, it was absolutely huge as expected - but it was actually really good. While I have had better steaks in Australia, I get the feeling Argentinian parillia's give a more consistently properly cooked steak. That's based on my strong statistical formula of one steak...
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