Salta

Hola Everybody,
We have left BA and took a 20 hours bus to Salta at the North West of Argentina.
Salta is a very lovely city(470,000 citizens) and has a really fun atmosphere and a great night life.

Except of the valleys, most of the mountain area is very desert like and dry(although surprisingly green at some places!!!). It rains here only for about a week once in a year and of course you can guess what happened a day after we arrived.... yes, it started raining.....
We rented a car for 2 days and went to some near towns around the area (Cafayate, Cachi, San Carlos.Santa Rosa...). The road was really beautiful - a combination between "Mitzpe Ramon" and the "Rocky mountains". We found ourselves taking dozens photos of rocks...

and the really cool thing were the giant cactus. Their insides are a hollow wooden trunk filled with water and they make a lot of the furniture from it in Salta and the villages around.

Most of the villages we visited are really poor and relay totally on their flock and crops. They have no running water, no gas or electricity and the people live in a mud like shacks built from the red rocks from the area. Although its Argentina, because it is near the Bolivian border - the people here look much like Bolivians and you can see a lot of Bolivian influence.

Anyway, it was really tricky driving back to Salta because the roads were blocked due to the floods caused by the rain. The local authorities sent out people with sweepers and it was a really funny thing to watch, as they stood there with water flowing up to their knees trying to sweep it out of the way.
The next day, after our challenging driving experience, instead of driving 580 km in a rented car to the "Salinas" near the city of Jujuy, we decided to take an organized tour.
The "Salinas" are big lakes covered with a 30cm layer of crystallized volcanic salt.
It was very beautiful and very bright, although a bit scary when our driver started driving like crazy on the lake....

There also was a restaurant there, made completely out of salt....including the tables and the chairs....really cool!!! However the geniuses that build it didn´t quite think about bringing water to the place... so it has never been open... (I bet its the same guy who thinks you can wipe 30cm of rain water with a broomstick...)

Anyhow, we are off to the Iguassu falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil... its a 20 hour bus ride and unfortunately we couldn´t get tickets to a good bus, so its gonna be a very long 20 hours for us...
hope you are all doing well and enjoying the winter (it´s 37º here and we miss the freezing Patagonia)
keep in touch...miss you...

Dina & Loni