Salta 14 - 18 May

So there we were in Puerto Iguazu on the border of Argentina and Brazil, we desperately wanted to get to Bolivia as soon as possible but everyone kept telling us that Salta - Argentina was not to be missed! The Mavrix are not in the habit of listening when spoken to so it took quite a bit of convincing (our Moms will know this), especially since it meant going all the way back across Argentina. But we cleared the wax out of our ears, packed our ear plugs into our ever growing bags and got ready for a 23 hour bus ride cross country to Salta, and soon came to experience and relise that Salta is a place unlike no other in all of Argentina. Back to the bus journey into Salta.. 23 hours sounds pretty bad... how about adding 6 hours because some farmers are protesting and have blocked the only road out of town! Sheesh and you thought Load Shedding traffic was bad.... we didnt move a step in 6 hours and the driver refused to serve dinner till the next town, this meant eating our already reheated schnitzel, which landed on our laps wrapped in the cheapest plastic money can buy at 4am... and we all know that the only thing that tastes good at that time of the morning is Bimbos burgers or their breakfast in Pita!



We arrived in Salta mid afternoon and after doing the mandatory check in and bag drop we took a walk to explore the city. Using the trusted Gringos travelers coincidence rader system it was only a matter of 10 minutes into our walk before we ran into a German friend of ours Hari Har - quick one - Hari Har nicknamed Harry, was born in India but is a German through and through, he looks like he was once the kid on the KinderJoy chocolate pack with a curly blonde afro and blue eyes, holds powers of exceptional reasoning and despite being quite a funny guy himself just cant get our jokes all the time ¨it iz jist not logikal¨.- Hari was with a Red headed, blue eyed Irish girl on his arm like Long John Silver and his squaking parrot. Hari like his forefathers before him had conquered the Irish and was in full colonisation mode. Eimer was her name (yeah we struggle to pronounce it as well) and being typically Irish was her game. She has a mouth like a truck driver and stories that dont sound all together Catholic! So then there were four!

We used the rest of the afternoon to look at the Niños de la Montañas. These 3 kids were found at the top of the Andean mountain peaks frozen to death after being sacridiced to the God of the mountain. They now lay in the Mummy museum in a state of perfect conservation, thats what below zero temperatures will do to you! Unfortunately the museum sucked and we only got to see one little Niño (guess it was passed the others bedtime) that had been cracked on the head by lightening. Still, seeing The little child of lighting´s ancient teeth peaking out from her mouth, her curled fingers and eyelashes all perfectly preserved after 500 years was pretty cool.

But she wasn´t the real reason that we or anyone else really comes to Salta, everyone comes to Salta to drive out of Salta because it is a region of great beauty in the non traditional sense, one that needs days to explore from the comfort of a luxury german made sedan. Unfortunately all the luxury german sedans were rented out that day (read as ridiculously expensive) so the fantastic four hired the towns best bargin - a red Fiat Uno with more scratches and bumps that we could count ( avery useful trait when returning the car for inspection, "No Sir that scratch was there before... I swear it was"). The surrounding area is just brilliant, spectacular and almost uncapturable on camera as we soon discoved. The landscape goes from city, the beautiful green farmland to multicoloured bare rock mountains (reds and purples and greens OH MY!), full on rainbows of earth and rock creeping out of the ground! Also the shapes are crazy as mother earth was turning in her bed alot in this region and therefore all the formations look like many books piled ontop of each other and then pushed up creating jagged edges and definite changes in colours and line. Wow. Me Gusta!

But before we could head out on our road trip the FF´s had some celebrating to do Irish style, that means lots of wine and food (no Guiness in Salta) and much singing and story telling. It was Eimer´s birthday and we used the opportunity to sample the local cuisine and do as much of the above as possible...we did well. So well in fact that the waiter asked us about 5 times if we needed the bill before we caved in and headed back home by taxi. Our sore heads the next morning would soon eroded as the beauty of the landscape greeted us.

The Mavrix dont think that words or pictures can do the scenery the justice it deserves!!! The mountains you drive through would embaress a rainbow with the diversity of colours. They continually change colours with large slabs of reds, blues, yellows and purples being common and pinks, greens and pure whites jumping out at you around every corner. It was amazing to see how over millions and decades of years the earth has pushed her plates together so hard in this region that there are literally thousands of mountains around, and to to this crazy rock fomations have been formed making a clear distinction between each colour and creating a gobstopper effect. The Mavrix took over 300 photos in the space of 2 days on that road trip (I think I´m turning Japanese, I think I´m turning Japanese, I really think sooo) did we mention that none of the photos did the place any justice, only a trip there will truly bring understanding. We are so glad we washed the wax out our ears and went

Some of the highlights included the Ampitheatre - a deep hole in the mountain with its own in house band, some land art in the form of a multidirectional mirror in the middle of nowhere, the funny cactus pics we took, the local people - gauchos living off the land and the all round barren yet beautiful scenery. Basically we saw cool stuff and smiled a lot.


We had however miscalculated the time needed to do the trip (I guess its longer when you are Japanese) and had to wake up at an unreasonable hour to return the Uno in time to the rental guys. Negotiating mountain passes at 4 in the morning from an extrem altitude of 3500m is a chilling experience and quite cold too! We managed however to return the car in time and even managed to avert the rental guys eyes from the broken seatbelt in the back seat. Score!

The rest of the day involved washing dirty socks (seems as though we have a constant flow of incoming dirty socks) and downloading the photos from the trip (2 CD´s worth Japanese style). We would say goodbye (Konitchiwa) to Salta and Argentina this evening as we walked to the bus station with 8 other Gringos (a Gaggle of Gringos?) to boarder our final luxury bus to the land of runny tummies, crazy bus drivers, high altitudes and amazing adventures .... Next time Bolivia!