Salta, Arg

2 earplugs, 1 glass of wine and 1 Advil PM later… I have finally discovered the secret to overnight bus rides and am 7 hours closer to Salta. Yep thats right I slept 7 out of 20 hours on the ride here. I’ve never been able to sleep for more than 1 hour at a time while riding a bus or plane so that was a miracle!

I decided to come to Salta with my friend Cherelle who I met in Mendoza because we were waiting around Mendoza for the border to Santiago, Chile to open. Every day we would wake up and check to see if buses were going there and if they weren’t we would book another night at the hostel and say we would try again the next day. After it had been snowing all week which was extremely weird for this time of year and we both decided we couldn’t stay another day in Mendoza so we headed North to the famous desert area called Salta. We ended up meeting a guy from Belgium, Jeff, on the bus ride up who happened to be staying in our same hostel so we all became friends.

The town center is big and has lots of really great restaurants to eat at. We went up to a viewpoint via a telefrico (gondala) and had some really pretty views of the city. The museum of Archeology was also very interesting to see as it had many interesting artifacts from the Inca Empire and displayed different stories of how Incan Children were scarified during their time as a way to worship their God. Other than that there wasn't much else going on in this town except for the fact that it was a great home base to see nearby desert attractions.

After being stuck at the hostel in Mendoza for a week Juan Carlos was our favorite employee :)

Our 20 hour bus ride ride included the comfiest seats ever

Riding the Gondola over the city

Cafayate

We booked a tour to see this very famous area just south of Salta. The tour stopped at lots of different places out in the desert and we had an amazing typical northern Argentinian lunch. Overall we weren’t too impressed  as a lot of the rocks and formations started looking the same about half way through the tour. We got to feed some llama on the way back which was a lot of fun! We also stopped at the Quara winery to do a couple of tastings.

Cafayate

Garganta Del Diablo- I thought this looked like California

We fed the llamas... Their tongues felt really weird!

Quara Bodega- Their Torrantes wine was the best white wine I had in Argentina

Roadtrip to the North of Salta

Cherelle, Jeff and I decided instead of doing another tour that we should rent a car for a couple of days and drive up further North towards Bolivia and spend a night in a town called Humahuaca. We didn’t really have a plan or a place to stay yet, but everything ended up working out in the end and we had an amazing time. 

Pumamacha

This was a cute little town where we were able to eat lunch and walk around the different shops and look at souvenirs. They also had a few different hikes  to see the famous rocks that had 7 colors. It was extremely hot and dry! 

We also tried finding a lagoon next to the town and after a while ended up finding it behind a bunch of sweaty drunk soccer players who were in the middle of scrimmaging next to the lagoon. The lagoon was nothing more than a dirty little pond, but the soccer players ended up making this stop amazing. As soon as they saw us they tried talking to us and wanted us to try their concoction of boxed wine and coca cola. It was nothing special but it was a lot of fun to talk to them and take pictures with them. They all wanted a selfie with us, it was absolutely hilarious. We felt very welcome by them so our disappointment from the lack of lagoon was quickly made up by this entertaining afternoon spent with these guys.

7-color rock 

Soccer players at the lagoon

This guy really wanted a selfie with us haha

Tilcara

This town was a little bit more touristy than the others and there seemed to be lots of cool options as far as food and hostels to stay at. 

Humahuaca

We decided to find a hostel in this town because it was the furthest north we were going and it was near many trails we wanted to try to drive up the next morning. After we arrived at the hostel we were told we shouldn’t drive up to the 14 colors rock unless we had 4 wheel drive. We started the drive and realized we should listen to this advice because the roads were not paved so we ended up turning around after we got some pictures of HUGE cacti.

I loved the decor at this hostel- Gerundo Hostel

A group of us from the hostel wanted to go to dinner and all 11 of us were able to squeeze into this table meant for 4. It was a lot of fun!

Giant cacti

Jeff drove the entire trip, thank goodness

Salinas

These are the famous salt flats of Argentina and the 4th biggest in the world. We had to take a guide out onto the flats since driving yourself was not permitted because there are certain areas that have holes and water inside. It cost about $12 to have the guide for 45 minutes so we moved as quickly as possible and along the way we were able to try some of the delicious salt straight off the floor and take some awesome pictures that ended up turning out to be incredible!

Salt Flats Mineral Water

Perception