After a hectic journey from Iguazu, I was ready for a little relaxation and Salta provided the perfect place to take it easy for a while. Here I was able to catch up with Jody (a friend I had met in Pucon), see a couple great museums and get some laundry done. One day Jody and I ended up eating empanaditos at a local hole in the wall (or more accurately, hole in the sidewalk)
where we ended up talking (in poor Español) with the family that owned the restaurant for over 30 minutes. The children (ages 8 and 5) were curious to learn English and to know things like if we had a car at home. These are the travel experiences I will never forget.
One day, I took a tour down to Cafayate which is a really small town known almost as much for the amazing road that leads there as for its true claim to fame - vino. It was another incredible day with more photo opportunities than you could really stand. After arriving back from the tour at 10:30pm, we hurried to the bus terminal for a bus to the Argentinian border town of La Quiaca.
To say that it was an uncomfortable ride would be an understatement. At one point I opened my eyes to see the front and side windows of the upper level of this bus covered in ice. On the inside. This was a sure sign that we had left the warmer, lower altitude and were headed into Bolivia which, for the most part, is all at altitude. After putting on 4 more layers at the Argentinian
border, we walked a kilometer to the Bolivian border town of Villazon where we officially entered Bolivia and quickly caught a bus to the town of Tupiza. Tupiza was a brilliant introduction to Bolivia. Things here, as in the rest of this country, are cheap. Five dollars for a place to stay (including breakfast), two or three bucks for dinner, etc. I took a horseback tour through the beautiful red mountains surrounding town and got to really run with a horse for the first time in my life. A bit scary at first, I soon could not get enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment