A simple blog about our round-the-world trip. We will update when we can. Since our readership is international, we will write mostly in English. However, from time to time, we will write in Molière's language and Mickiewicz'. Feel free to comment and ask us questions about our destinations and "coups de coeur". Don't worry, we will also tell you if we ever find ourselves in... a putrid dwelling (for our colleagues at work); a s*** hole (for our close friends). :)
Bonne aventure!
The Great : The location of San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro is a terrific hub with at least a week worth of activities to do around the city. Want to see a salt lake? Just head 40 km south of town. Want to see Pre-Inca ruins? Walk 3 km north of town. Want to hike in the altiplano and climb a volcano (or two)? Yep, you can do all these things from San Pedro. Or maybe you prefer walking in the driest desert in the world and see truly moon-like landscapes? Then visit Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte, just a short distance west of town. I could go on and on. San Pedro is the place to be if you want to enjoy some of the finest desert and altiplano activities in the world.
The Hidden : Santiago Atlas. Who is he? He is a tour guide in San Pedro. We took a tour with him and have been very impressed by his professionalism and knowledge. We spoke with other travelers who took as many as 4 tours with him and everybody was as impressed as we have been. You won’t find his name in any travel guide. It is a shame because he deserves that much publicity. You want take a tour or two in San Pedro? Then you want Santiago as your guide. Period.
The Overrated : Alain Maury’s stargazing tour. To be fair we did not book a tour with Alain. However, plenty of our friends did and they were unanimous: the tour is overpriced and overrated. The tour costs 30$ which gives you two hours at Alain’s house where you’ll be given a general introduction to stargazing. Then you’ll have less than 30 minutes to play with the few telescopes at the disposal (to be shared with the 30+ other enthusiasts). This means very little watching and lots of waiting. Finally you’ll be served with coffee before being transported back to San Pedro. Ania and I initially wanted to book this tour but after all the negative comments, we decided that setting up our own (free) stargazing expedition was the way to go. After all our triple-A stargazing experience in Hawaii cost us 0$, and we had plenty of time to use the telescopes. Sorry Alain, your stargazing offering is overrated.
The Ugly : The dryness. Our lips are cracking and so is our soft, soft skin. There is so much sand in San Pedro that the light afternoon wind makes our lives miserable. Water is scarce so it was impossible for us to take 4-5 showers per day to get rid of the sand. Bring plenty of lipstick.
You can now view the pictures from our second set.
To view the pictures in the correct order, please click on "View My Gallery" under the thumbnails, select the desired album and click on the first picture.
Chile and Argentina have been bitter rivals in modern history. After being very close to war at the end of the 1970’s, the two nations finally made peace under the watchful eye of the Pope. Still, rivalry persists.
Now I want to add a bit of fuel to the bright burning fire between the two nations. Our trip in Chile will be much shorter than our trip in Argentina, so please take our comparisons with a grain of salt.
I’ll have three categories for you:
1 – Landscapes
2 – People
3 – Organization
1 - While we did not see much of Chile, what we saw around San Pedro de Atacama is very reminiscent of what we saw in Northern Argentina. The dry landscape, the Altiplano, the colorful mountains all mark the landscape of both countries at this latitude. Of course Chile has the driest desert in the world – and the most amazing night sky to boot – but then Argentina has the fabulous Perito Moreno Glacier and the lush rainforests around IguazuFalls for which there is no equivalent in Chile. Argentina has more diverse landscapes than Chile. Argentina wins this one.
2 – This category is a bit harder to evaluate because again, we did not spend enough time in Chile to be able to compare properly. However, for the sake of comparing apples with apples, I’ll take two very touristy towns, San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and El Calafate in Argentina to decide a winner. Ania and I found out that it was fairly easy to talk to the locals in El Calafate. Most Argentineans were very friendly. In San Pedro de Atacama, the locals seem a bit more reserved and harder to approach. All of them are polite but being a tourist doesn’t give us that little extra smile that greeted us in El Calafate. Argentina wins this category as well.
3 – If the locals in Chile are a bit less welcoming than Argentineans, they do have a much, much better sense of organization. As I discussed previously Argentina looks like a rich nation with the level of organization sometimes apparent to developing nations: credit cards not accepted or imposed heavy surcharges, electronic gadgets outrageously priced or impossible to find, ubiquitous black market, financial instability, etc.
In San Pedro de Atacama the contrast was immediate. It started with the local vegetable grower that produced a receipt on every transaction. It was also our hostel owner that insisted on distributing receipts because “the police often make surprise visits and the fines are heavy if you are not registered”. It is also Chile’s attitude towards businesses. The hostel owner is originally from France. She moved to Chile a few years ago to open her own hostel. When I asked her about the difficulty of opening a business in Chile, she replied that it was easiest thing in the world, with formalities kept to a minimum. Then I asked her if she had ever considered opening a business in Argentina. She replied an emphatic “no”. Why? “Because in Chile you don’t need to know anybody to open a business. In Argentina, you need contacts and you need to be ready to befriend the bureaucrat who is in charge of giving you a license. Plus there is the risk that the government may have a change of mind and shut down your business on grounds you will likely ignore”. There you go, a business owner has spoken. Chile easily wins this category.
Please take this comparison with a grain of salt. You’ll want to visit both countries in South America. Both will leave you with unforgettable memories. Your memories of Chile will be better organized, that’s all.
I've uploaded the first set of pictures of Chile. A second set should follow shortly.
To view the pictures in the correct order please click on "View My Gallery" under the thumbnails, select the desired album and click on the first picture.
I don’t think I have ever written a post solely to describe a hostel, but this time I found it a special enough experience that deserves a separate entry.
I have a love-and-hate relationship with the hostel we are staying in in San Pedro de Atacama. The day we checked in, we started right away to look for some alternative place; we were planning to stay in San Pedro for some 10 days and I couldn’t imagine spending all this time in the hostel I had just seen.
To start with, Atacama Desert in the winter is not the hottest place one can imagine (I refer you to Marc’s post on temperatures). It is no big deal during the day, but the temperature drops radically at night. Well, all common spaces in the hostel are located in the inside court and even to go to a washroom or use the showers one needs to go outdoors. To take a shower I always carefully choose the moment when the sun shines the strongest. If one is unfortunate enough to use the toilet at night, big boots and a coat are necessary.
Although the kitchen is fortunately indoors, it is too small to hold more than 2-3 people at once and, frankly, it is not the nicest place to spend time, so we usually try to get out as soon as possible. And the rooms are bare, quite dark and quite cold – I sleep under three covers AND inside my sleeping bag.
Why are we staying here, one might ask? Well, I’m willing to believe that this place emits some magical magnetic forces that draws me to here and make me love it despite all the shortcomings.
Practically every night after sunset there is a big bonfire in the middle of the interior court. Everybody draws near it, of course, and there is always a bottle of wine circling around and lots of laughs and a strange sense of community (only partially related to alcohol) :)
The owners of the hostel are both French and they are both very direct and friendly. One of the owners, in fact, reminds me a little bit of my mum; she takes such a good care of us, she is very warm, but doesn’t hesitate to scold us if we come back too late from an escapade to the desert(“Finally! Where have you been?! I have almost called carabinieros to look for you” – these were the words of greeting when we came back after the stargazing trip a little before 11pm).
During our stay in the hostel we had a movie night featuring a fantastic documentary “Nostalgia of the light”, followed by a discussion at the fire. And soon after our departure, there will be a presentation on the project ALMA, the largest telescope on Earth currently being built not far from San Pedro. And this is just the beginning. The owners’ plan is to turn the hostel into a cultural centre for tourists, as well as for the locals. They are building up a library, giving French courses to locals, and organizing a weekly chess club for all willing to play.
It is also quite incredible how easy it is to make new friends here. After staying in the hostel for a bit over a week, I already exchanged emails with at least 10 people! This has never happened to me before.
I hated this place when I arrived here and now I hate to think I will have to leave. But the owners have built so much more than a barren hostel here. I cross my fingers for the owners and hope the hostel will only get better!!
San Pedro de Atacama is a lively little town with plenty of nice bars and restaurants. Our best night, however, led us far away from it all. Far from the nightlife but close to the stars.
Northern Chile is renowned for its exceptionally clear skies perfect for stargazing. The air is very dry and there is no light pollution whatsoever outside of San Pedro, so the nightly spectacle one can admire here is impossible to see in any city, or anywhere in Europe, for that matter. In fact, the largest telescope on Earth (Project ALMA) is currently being built some 50 km west of San Pedro de Atacama. So we decided to take advantage of these natural conditions and set up a star gazing escapade. During the planning phase our group suddenly grew from original two members to six – new friends we met in our hostel decided to join us.
A couple of kilometers from San Pedro there are P-Columbian ruins on a large hill. And a little above the ruins there is a great viewpoint. We decided that this would be the perfect place to watch the sunset and observe the stars. Although there are guards and opening hours for the entry to the ruins and the viewpoint, we were told in our hostel that we should just talk to the guards and there would be no problem staying up at the viewpoint after closing hours.
We dressed very very VERY warmly (see Marc`s post on the weather in San Pedro), we took a big thermos with hot water, and pocket lamps.
Unfortunately the guards at the entrance were not quite as sympathetic to our plan as we had anticipated. They were not willing to accommodate us in any way. And it was too late to look for another spot for our stargazing. I am a law-abiding citizen so if I were alone with Marc I would probably have convinced him to postpone the outing. But our friends were determined to proceed as originally planned and they easily convinced me.
We climbed to the top of the hill, set up our mini-camp and waited for the night, hoping that the guards wouldn’t chase us up the hill. Finally the night came and it was as magnificent as we had imagined. The sky was absolutely beautiful, the Milky Way was clearly visible, and we could see millions and millions of stars if we only raised our heads.
Although we had no professional astronomer with us, we could still find lots of constellations and some planets thanks to SkyMap on my tablet (thank you, Google!!). We even tried our luck with basic astrophotography. See the results for yourselves.
After a few hours of this stellar experience, we decided that it was time go back home. The trek in the night back downhill was not half as hard as we had thought. The biggest challenge was to keep the lights and noise to a minimum, in order not to alert the guards of our presence. On our way back downhill, we thought about the worst thing that could happen to us for breaking the rules. The majority of the group thought a cordon of carabinieros waiting for us at the gate would be the worst outcome. I, on the other hand, thought the worst possibility would be if the guards at closing time had unleashed bloodthirsty dogs to search the terrain for stubborn tourists :)
Fortunately, none of these scenarios came true. After the descent we arrived at the locked gate. Trying to use the least light possible, we all climbed one by one over the fence and quickly disappeared from the crime scene.
Once we could all breathe freely, we unanimously decided that all the effort was totally worth it. Personally, I consider this night as one of the best adventures I’ve experienced during our trip. It was a perfect mixture of adventure, science and good company :)
How should you dress if you visit San Pedro de Atacama in winter? I haven’t found the right answer to that question but I can give you an advice or two.
San Pedro de Atacama is a town in the middle of a high altitude desert and as such produces temperature extremes between night and day. No, that is not true. The contrasts are also very apparent if you sit in the shadow or if you sit in the sun during daytime. As I am writing this I am in the shadow and I have my tuque on. If I sit in the sun I will be forced to remove my tuque and I will probably have to remove a layer or two as well.
Visiting any of the attractions close to San Pedro is a headache to organize. Let’s take the Tatio Geysers at 4200 meters above sea level. The tour leaves San Pedro at 4:30 AM to reach the geysers before sunset. At that time the temperature is a freezing -15 with wind chill factor probably clipping another 10 degrees. Once the sun rises around 7:30 AM the temperature gets closer to zero. In the afternoon during the walk in the canyon, the temperature is a solid 15 degrees with high risk of sun burns for those not adequately protected (after all San Pedro is located within the tropics). Too cold, too hot but never perfect.
Ania and I took the habit of putting on 4-5 layers of clothing and then gradually removing them as the sun rises above the sky. It is cumbersome to carry around that much clothing but we haven’t found a better way.
Of course these sudden changes of temperature raise the possibility of catching a cold. Well, for me it is no longer a possibility; it is reality. Back to bed for now…
Water is extremely scarce. We are in an oasis in the middle of the driest desert in the world, the Atacama Desert.
Around us the Chilean Altiplano, a high-altitude plateau surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes. The sights are impressive. The only problem is, I have a big headache…
Well, the big headache is due to a phenomenon called “altitude sickness”, and most high altitude hikers will suffer from it at some point during their journey. Lack of oxygen is the primary culprit.
San Pedro de Atacama sits at 2500 meters above sea level. At that altitude, levels of oxygen drop by 25%. At 3500 meters, oxygen levels are decreased by 40%. The effects on the human body can be brutal.
We crossed the border between Argentina and Chile at JamaPass at 4300 meters above sea level. We had to wait two hours in the middle of the Chilean Altiplano to process our documents. When I got out of the bus I noticed that my heart was pounding like crazy and that I was breathing heavily. How could that be? Getting off a bus is not the most exercise-heavy activity I’ve done in my life. What was going on then? Simply said, my body was reacting to a lack of oxygen.
After our bus departed, the road that took us to San Pedro de Atacama reached almost 5000 meters. That’s where I started to have a headache, which kept pounding for the rest of the day. My body was saying : “Stop!”. Altitude sickness was taking a toll on me and I had no choice but to cancel any activity for the next day.
Altitude sickness manifests itself through primarily mild symptoms. Primary symptoms can include headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, and nosebleed.
However, in rare cases altitude sickness can be extremely dangerous and if ignored, can lead to death. Severe symptoms include fluid in the lungs and brain swelling. At that point, action is needed immediately (most likely descent at lower altitude for the hiker) or death is a serious possibility.
So what is the best way to deal with altitude sickness? Acclimatization. The human body has a fabulous capacity to adapt to an oxygen deprived environment. It just needs time. That’s why any journey in Northern Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, must include a period of acclimatization at high altitude. Those arriving on a direct flight to La Paz in Bolivia – La Paz sits at a staggering 4400 meters above sea level – would be foolish to start mountain hiking in the first day. Four or five days of rest is needed before any physical exercise is undertaken.
Altitude sickness is a necessary evil to see some of the most beautiful landscapes of South America. Just give your body a chance.
We are taking a bus from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile at 1 Am tonight. It's never fun to take night buses specifically when the bus passes through the Salinas Grandes which, fortunately for us, we saw about a week ago.
We'll spend a week or two in San Pedro de Atacama, enough time to visit some great attractions not too far from town. Then we'll decide if we want (or have enough time) to go to Calama or some other town in Northern Chile.
Our next destination after Chile is Bolivia, where hopefully we'll be able to shake hands with Evo Morales, the first indigenous person elected to the highest office in Bolivia.
We'll let you know if our request for a personal meeting is successful :)
Number of flights taken: 1 (from Buenos Aires to Patagonia)
Number of posts added to our blog:15
Number of marital conflicts: 1 (and it was a minor one that rose quickly during a heated political-economical discussion and died equally quickly once we arrived at some Pre-Inca ruins; it put things in perspective)
Best overnight stay: it's hard to decide as we stayed in a few great and atmospheric hostels. I would give the first prize to our hostel in El Calafate (Patagonia). It felt like home. There was a fireplace lit up every evening. There was no flat screen TV. Instead, sofas were facing huge panoramic windows with beautiful views on the lake and surrounding mountains. And we met some great people there.
Our hostel in Mendoza also deserves a mention: there w a court with hammocks to relax during siesta time, a free glass of wine every evening, and a lot of activities organized by the hotel staff every day of the week.
Worst overnight stay: definitely the hostel we stayed in in Buenos Aires. We had a double room but it looked more like a prison cell than anything else. It was also not the cleanest place I've visited. Not to mention the fact that this was the place where our bag was stolen so we clearly don't have good memories of this place.
Best Call we made: visiting the Talampaya National Park on bikes. There are three choices available: tourist bus, a walking tour and a bike tour. On the day we went there, there was quite a strong wind and the bike tour operators did everything they could to discourage us from cycling. We suspect it was mostly because the guide didn't feel like cycling himself. However, we were very determined and we ended up having a private tour, since other tourists were easier to persuade.
The wind may have been strong but it didn't bother us most of the time. We were shown some sites where tourists in buses don't stop and we could admire some magnificent petroglyphs completely undisturbed.
I also felt I could better appreciate the grandeur of the canyon on bike than in a bus. It was a great day and it didn't bother us one little bit that the guide at some point decided he had had enough and he practically left us all far behind on the way back :)
Worst Call we made: leaving Patagonia so early. We had a good reason to do so because we wanted to make a road trip with two French guys we met in El Calafate and they were short on time. We had a great time with our French friends. However, we regret not spending more time in the south. Well, this just means we have to come back to Argentina :)
The Great: I’ll have two winners in this category. One award goes to Salta. Like Ania said in a separate post, Salta has a great mix of culture and architecture. Plus it is safer than other cities of similar size in Argentina. For landscape the award goes to Ruta 40 between Cafayate and Cachi. The Quebrada de Las Flechas offer some fantastic rock formations with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. Ruta 40 is truly marvelous in Northern Argentina.
The Hidden: Garganta del Diablo in Tilcara. None of the travel guides we read mentioned this great little hike. The views at the top of the mountain looking down the valley are great and the canyon is very nice. This was a refreshing hike that should be on the radar of anyone interested in doing some exercise in that part of the country.
The Overrated: Los Cardones Nacional Parque. The park left us disappointed although it is visited by all local tours. The cactuses are small and not in good condition compared to the huge ones we saw the day earlier in Quilmes. The area was made into a national park only a few years ago, and I suspect that the reason was to stem illegal logging in the area. If you want to see big cactuses, Quilmes is a much better destination. Los Cardones is not worth the detour.
The Ugly: Nothing stood out in particular during this trip.
I’ve taken the liberty of sharing with you the details of a fabulous road trip around Salta in northwest Argentina.
Ania and I met a couple of Londoners who were also on a round-the-world trip. We decided to rent a car together and explore the outstanding landscape around Salta. To be an explorer one has to have a car in this part of the country. Here's my account.
First day – We drove south of Salta along Ruta 68. We stopped for lunch at beautiful Lago Embalse Cabra Corral. Then we resumed our drive south along Quebrada de las Conchas, a mountain range with stunning colors. We saw a few main highlights such as Garganta del Diablo and El Anfiteatro. , …(see first picture). We finally arrived in Cafayate, a quaint little town that specializes in producing a white wine called Tonrrontes. We stay Rusty-K Hostal, a great hostel loaded with atmosphere.
Second day – Our main objective for the day was Cachi, a town located on Ruta 40. But before we headed for Cachi, we visited pre-Columbian ruins south of Cafayate called Quilmes ruinas. Quilmes ruinas are nice but a bit underwhelming (read my other post on that matter). We climbed on top of a near hill to get a good bird’s-eye view of the ruins. A very nice feature of these ruins is the gigantic cactuses found on the site. After Quilmes we headed back to Cafayate where we took a left on Ruta 40. Ruta 40 is the most famous road in Argentina – it spans for more than 5000 km from the tip of northern Argentina to Rio Gallegos at the doorstep Tiera del Fuego. At this point Ruta 40 is unpaved and in ok to poor condition. On our way to Cachi we stopped to admire Quebrada de las Flechas (see second picture) before we resumed our course due north.
Third day – We left Cachi early in the morning and drove high above the clouds, some 3000 meters above-sea level on a very windy road. At some point we had to stop the car because a small landslide had put rocks on the road. While we were waiting for trucks to remove the rocks on the road another driver told us that one of our tyre was punctured! We fixed our punctured tyre and continued on to Purmamarca, our destination for the day. We drove through the Los Cardones Nacional Parque, a park with a high concentration of cactuses. Unfortunately we found out that the cactuses in the park are smaller and less impressive than the ones we saw in Quilmes the day earlier. After Los Cardones Nacional Parque we drove non-stop to Purmamarca, a beautiful little town north of Salta. We arrived in Purmamarca just in time for supper. Tonight Ania and I chose to cook tuna, onions, and rice for the group. With lots of red wine on the table, our simple dish easily became a success.
Fourth day – We started our day in lovely Purmamarca (see third picture) where we took plenty of pictures of the local wonder, Cerro de Los Siete Colores. We also took a couple of hours to explore the great arts and crafts market. The colors were wonderful. Early in the afternoon we drove towards the Salinas Grandes, a massive salt desert deep in the Andes. The Salinas Grandes were very impressive and were a great preamble to our visit to the gigantic Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia. The landscape on the way to Salinas Grandes was magnificent. We chose to sleep at Tilcara. Another perfect day.
Fifth day – A combination of bad luck and poor decision-making made us unable to reach our objective of the day, Laguna de Pozuelo. First we left too late from Tilcara and along the way we got stuck for an hour and a half as protesters blocked the only asphalt road in the region. After we cleared the barricade, we took the wrong dirt road leading to Laguna de Pozuelo. The road was terrible and after we drove 25 km in the middle of nowhere and almost brought our small Chevrolet Corsa to its knees, we decided to head back as it was late afternoon and the thought of sleeping in the Andes on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere did not enchant anyone. At least the llamas looked happy (see fourth picture) Disappointed, we headed back to Tilcara knowing what could have been.
Sixth day – We stayed in Tilcara where we explored the ruins and hiked around town at Garganta del Diablo (no, not the same Garganta del Diablo as in the first day). After hiking for an hour and a half Ania and I reached a small but deep canyon (see fifth picture). The hike was demanding but ultimately rewarding.
Seventh day – We slowly made our way back to Salta. The trip is over.
Here’s my ranking of the attractions and the towns we saw along the way:
Lago Embalse Cabra Corral: great
Quebrada de la conchas: superb
Cafayate: great
Quilmes ruins: ok
Quebrada de Las Flechas: superb
Cachi: ok
Los Cardones Nacional Parque: ok
Purmamarca: superb
Salinas Grandes: great
Tilcara: great
Northern Argentina is a magic place. Fans of Andean culture who make the Bolivia-Peru trip should go down south and explore the stunning landscape around Salta. Salta is a place where Spanish culture meets Andean culture. It is also the starting point of a culture not defined by physical borders. I’ll have more on that later.
Ania and I got really excited at the thought of visiting our first Pre-Columbian ruins in northern Argentina. After all this is a region that once thrived under the Inca Empire. We visited two such ruins and I have to say that we were a bit disappointed.
You see, the problem is that archaeologists in Argentina have made decisions which are highly suspect: restore ruins to a point where nothing is left of the original structures or even worse, build totally new (and irrelevant) structures on top of existing ruins.
Of course the tightly packed and perfectly disposed stones and symmetrical mud houses help illustrate how life was 600 years ago, but in so doing archaeologists have removed the “historical” aspect to the ruins. For example, in Tilcara archaeologists have decided to build a massive concrete structure to honor the archaeologists who discovered the ruins at Tilcara. The problem is that the site chosen is right on top of the old ruins of the village temple. From an archeological point of view this was a terrible decision. Honor the archaeologists who made the discovery, yes, but please do so far, very far from existing ruins. Also, mud houses were all heavily retouched to the point where no original stones and mortar were left for the visitor to see. Only the cemetery looked fairly untouched.
Archaeologists are always faced with difficult choices when it comes to restoring and promoting historical sites. They really have to walk a thin line. On the one hand too much restoration can kill imagination and turn a historical site into a slideshow. On the other hand untouched ruins can degrade over time and the site can be lost. Also visitors are rarely impressed by looking at lumps of stones here and there. That’s why most ruins are restored to a certain extent, where the visitor can appreciate the feel and look of genuine ruins while able to size up a settlement thanks to restoration.
It seems that in Tilcara archaeologists have gone all in and restored the village back to its glorious days. It somehow leaves the visitor at a loss as one thought comes to mind: where are the ruins?
Before I went to Argentina I was very excited at the thought of immersing myself in Argentinean culture. Now I have realized that there is no such thing as an Argentinean culture. There are probably as many cultures as there are regions in this incredible country.
In Buenos Aires, I walked among buildings with impressive colonial architecture, which gave me a good idea of the past glory of Argentina. In the capital I only saw people of European descent very stylishly dressed. They were hurrying about to their busy lives, strolling leisurely on the streets, or simply sipping coffee with medialunas in one of the city's innumerable cafes. On the street I could hear the ever present rhythms of tango and milonga.
Once I arrived in Patagonia, the tango and cafes were entirely gone. The towns were simpler and subdued in comparison to the magnificent landscape around them. I felt as though I was in a ski resort town like those found anywhere in the world.
Coming to Mendoza I entered a region where the art of bien vivre is the rule of the day. The most defining characteristics of the local culture were for me wine and siesta, both taken very seriously by the locals.
And finally in Salta I encountered the Andean culture. For the first time in Argentina I could see on the streets more indigenous people than those of European descent. Arts and crafts sold in the markets are reminders that the people around Salta are direct descendants of the Incas. There are also numerous Pre-Colombian ruins in the region and its inhabitants are proud of their non-Hispanic heritage.
Before I came to Argentina the two things that came to my mind were tango and wine. This trip has been a great eye-opener. Argentina is at least as diverse in its cultures as it is in its landscapes. And the six weeks I have spent here are hardly enough to appreciate all its richness.
Finally I found my coup de cœur among Argentinean cities. Without any reservation. Let me introduce you to Salta. Salta is a relatively small city (or a big town) not far from the north-eastern border with Chile and Bolivia. It’s a beautiful place where one can wander around admiring nicely preserved colonial architecture. And at the same time one can feel the strong presence of Andean culture – the faces of people walking around the streets, the souvenirs sold in the shops, and the music played on the streets and in bars.
I should also mention that we actually don’t hesitate to explore different corners of the city. Salta seems to be the safest place we’ve been in Argentina since we left Patagonia. Salta lives almost entirely of tourism and they take the safety of tourists very seriously. There are police officers at almost every street corner. At the main square I once counted 10 policemen at the same time. Believe it or not but it actually works! We walk around stress-free and we even went out for an evening photo session.
Salta is vibrating with life at every time of the day. There are people on the streets from the morning throughout the day until late at night. Surprisingly this is true even during the siesta time when shops are closed. However, I must admit that I kind of took to the idea of siesta. We come back to our hostel and relax for a couple of hours before going back in town for the evening stroll / glass of wine. I actually warmed to the idea of a siesta so much that I’m thinking of starting a petition to introduce siesta hours back home in the office. Anybody wants to sign? :)
