Having seen all there was to see in Puerto Iguazu we boarded yet another bus to head for the town of Salta, Argentina. Salta is a quaint town in the northwest. It is a favorite vacation spot for Argentines because it has perpetually ¨spring like¨ weather and is considered one of Argentinas most beautiful cities. One of the cities biggest attraction is a tourist train, ¨Tren de las Nubes¨ that goes high into the Andes mountains. Unfortunately, it hasn´t been running for months because there are safety concerns with the tracks.
The city has beautiful architecture and Salta is considered one of the best examples of colonial architecture in the country. Below are just a sample of some of the churches:
Bonnie is still with us. Her and Chrissy have been doing a lot of shopping at street craft vendors. If I seen another pair of earrings....
The food in Argentina continues to impress. Steak is good and cheap, as is wine. Cuban cigars are also not hampered by the legal restrictions in the US, so I had to get one of those.
On 8/21, we took a group tour further north to the town of Cachi. This proved to be very interesting. Originally, we had hoped to do some trekking. We found it difficult to get around and opted to do a group excursion instead. We went into a tourism office and told them that we wanted to do real trekking. We even backed this up with additional information like - ¨we want to make sure that we get to hike/trek for a distance.¨ ¨We are interested in seeing a lot of the wildlife.¨ Through the agent´s Spanglish and our Englanol, we all felt comfortable at what we were signing up for. Her last question as we walked out the door was to ensure that we wanted and English guide. Why, yes. Thank you.
Fast forward the next morning when the bus arrives at our hotel to pick us up. The three of us are the youngest travelers by a good 25 plus years and quickly surmise that we would not be trekking in our definition of the word. It got even more interesting as the guide continued to talk in Spanish without ever switching over to English. At the first stop, we informed her that we did not speak Spanish and had requested an English guide. Our guide never missed a beat. Admittedly, she did not speak a word of English, but she did have a Spanish-English dictionary. Good enough.
One thing that we all found particularly interesting was the Cardones Cacti Park that we passed through on our way to Cachi. We all had been taught that saguaro cacti only grow in Arizona and be that as it may, the Cardones cacti look really, really similar. We cite our case below:
Here are Chrissy and Bonnie enjoying the sun off of the Andes on the same trip:
Our last day in Salta, we took a short hike to the San Lorenzo gorge, just outside of the city. There were butterflies all over the place, and Chrissy took a ton of pictures.
After Salta we head to Mendoza, a overnight stop before continuing on to Santiago, Chile where we say goodbye to Bonnie and meet up with Katherine.
Cheers,
Bill