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!