Cordoba itself wasn´t very memorable - maybe because we were a little ´´citied´´ out. It might have been better if we´d stayed out of the city itself! We only spent 2 nights there before heading to Salta on another night bus.
Salta had a really nice feel to it and although it was a city, it felt smaller. On our first day we walked to the top of Cerro San Bernardo to see the views of the city and the surrounding countryside (and also kid ourselves that we were doing a bit of preparation for the Inca Trail!
We had our first asado (Argentinian BBQ) at the hostal that night - and our first experience of how late Argentinians eat - we didn´t start eating until after 22.30! It was a great evening though and a good way to meet other travellers!
Based on a recommendation from somebody in the hostal we arranged to horseriding the next day. A little bit scary for me as it was my first time (yes I´d managed to go 27 years without needing to!) and only Jon´s second. The thought of the unlimited red wine and steak afterwards was keeping me going! My horse decided that all it wanted to was eat (apparently they try this on and if you don´t stop them they will keep playing you up!!) so it was hard telling it to do anything else. One of the gauchos got it to gallop after a lot of persuading and I have to say I was probably in agreement with the horse - I didn´t want to gallop either because it felt like the horse was going to throw me off at any moment! I felt a lot more ´´tranquilla´´ the second time we galloped though!
After a leisurely 3 hour ride (not including the gallops!) we returned to the ranch for a beautiful lunch. Argentinians sure know how to enjoy themselves - tender fillet steak (for the benefit of the tourists who may not fancy intenstines or heart or other bits of barbequed offal!!), homemade chimichurri, delicious salads and of course free-flowing red wine.
We only spent 2 nights in Salta - wish it was more but we were on a mission to make it to Cusco in time to register for the Inca Trek. We decided quite early on that instead of heading down to the beautiful southern part of Chile/Argentina we would head to the desert in the North (because of time and also because we hadn´t managed to see a desert on our trip so far). So after leaving Salta we made our way to San Pedro de Atacama.
Jon had been desparate to see the night sky in the desert and try and spot some constellations only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately someone was conspiring against us and although we had glorious sunshine all day, in the evening the clouds rolled in!
We organised to do 2 tours in San Pedro - one to the Valle de Luna and Muerte (Valley of the Moon and Death Valley) and another to some nearby lagoons. The one to the Valle de Luna and Muerte was excellent. The scenery was spectacular. Our guide was really knowledgeable and fun - getting us running down the sand dunes which was an experience!! The sunset that night was fantastic - the clouds that prevented us doing the star gazing made the colours of the sunset magical!!
Eating at 22.30 - way past your bedtime Miss Tillman. More great photos of the great time you are having x
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