South America Day 31 & 32

Day 31 - We left San Pedro at 8:30 heading for the Chile/Argentinian border, another long 500km drive day over the high Altiplano up and over Paso de Jama at 4400m and the actual border crossing not long after. It took us three and a half hours to get through the border, lots of waiting, stamping out of Chile and stamping in to Argentina plus getting all our bags scanned.  Another large tourist bus had arrived just before us which delayed us too.  Eventually we descended out of altitude down a winding road with loads of tight s-bends down the mountain side to flatter plains around 1150m to get to the Colonial city of Salta. It was an extremely long day we arrived in Salta at 10:00pm, three and a half hours delay at the border didn't help.

Day 32 - It's nice to be lower down again and warmer, we've been up at high altitude, warm days but cold nights, for about three weeks.  We're back to thin sheets on the beds instead of lots of layers of heavy blankets. We had a free day in Salta today.   Salta is an attractive town in the north west of Argentina, nicknamed "Salta la Linda"or "Salta the fair".   The city is well known as a handsome town in a beautiful area. We had a wander around town, there was a fair bit of colonial architecture and the old town centre around the main Plaza de Julio is lined with cafes and restaurants, a great place to while a way time people-watching.   We felt like we were in a Spanish town, everything is very westernised here and quite expensive, almost English prices, a complete contrast to poorer Bolivia and Peru.  

We took a return ride on the teleferico (cable car) up to Cerro San Bernardo, a small hill to the east of the town.  There wasn't much at the top apart from a cafe and a few tourist shops, there were good views of Salta though.  We did what the locals do and returned to the hotel for an afternoon siesta, everywhere closes between 1 & 4pm then everywhere comes to life again in the evening.  Friday evening shopping in Salta was like a busy Saturday in the UK, the Argentinians like to go out in the evening and eat dinner later, around 9/10pm.  We were the early birds at a restaurant at 8pm!

South America Day 30

We had a free morning in San Pedro so a nice lie in after yesterdays early start and long day. After breakfast at the hotel my cook group was on duty again for dinner tonight so we had to go shopping for supplies.  Nigel's group have yet to cook.  Nigel and I went for a lovely lunch at a little restaurant on a side street on the edge of town, cheaper than the main tourist drag.  Hopefully the local food choices will improve now we're out of Peru and Bolivia, we're bored of dishes of dry potato, rice and chicken!

In the afternoon we went on a trip to Moon Valley, just a short distance outside of San Pedro.  So called because the bizarre landscape resembles the surface of the moon with weird rock formations and huge sand dunes.  Eoin opened Ambers roof seats so we got to sit on the roof and enjoy the views as we were driving. The sunsets in Moon Valley can be amazing, with the changing light turning the stone and sand a kaleidoscope of different colours so we drove to a viewpoint for sunset and dinner.  We cooked a large sausage casserole for everyone, it seemed to go down well, most people going back for seconds. It's not easy camp cooking outdoors when it's windy and dusty for twenty two people. The sunset was over very quickly but did create a beautiful red tone on the mountains.