We took our third and final flight in Argentina on day 24, from Buenos Aires to the city of Salta in the northwest. Salta, also known as “Salta la linda” (Salta the pretty), is indeed quite pretty, and has much more of a chilled vibe (and is literally more chilled temperature-wise) than Buenos Aires. After checking in at our hostel, we wandered around near the central plaza for a while and had some empanadas for late lunch. Salta is nestled in a valley at the foot of the Andes, with streets full of Spanish colonial and neocolonial architecture and funky-coloured churches dotted all about the city. Being in the Andes and closer to Bolivia than to Buenos Aires means that the cultural vibe is fairly different to BA, the indigenous seem to have a stronger influence on the arts & crafts, music, and genetic makeup of the people here, and much llama everything is available for purchase. I’m currently trying to decide if it’s too culturally insensitive for me to buy and wear a sweet poncho.
One of the many parks in the city. This pond was excited to see me.
What's the point in being in such a pretty town if you have to live in this cloistered convent?
The one thing that doesn’t change throughout Argentina is that meaty meaty grilled meat reigns as king of meals. For the evening, we headed out to dinner at a local peña, a kind of restaurant/boozehouse/gig venue for impromptu folk musicians. Tripadvisor was very specific that we were not to arrive at the Casona del Molino until 9pm at the earliest and 10pm at the latest in order to get seats. Rocking up to the sprawling house at 9:20, the many rooms and the courtyard were still fairly empty, but sure enough by the time our food rolled out around 10, the place was full. We ordered the parrillada (grill plate) for 2, a salad, and 1 litre of house wine. In the beginning, I kept telling Jeremy to eat slowly, as the music supposedly never started before 11. However, halfway through the grill plate, eating slowly was not so much an issue compared to fitting any more food into our bellies at all. Once again, we horrified some ladies at the next table over with how much we managed to eat (not to mention also horrifying ME). Sure enough, around 11pm, instruments suddenly appeared at some of the tables and people burst into song. These aren’t musicians hired by the restaurant or anything - apparently locals in the folk scene just come to hang out every night and have a jam. While Jeremy was away in the bathroom, I was somewhat hit on by an old dude - I initially thought he was a manager or something at the restaurant who was just being friendly. Later on while we were wandering around the place listening to musicians play in different rooms, we realised he was actually half of a folk duo playing in one of the rooms. Upon catching sight of me, he launched into that super cheesy Chinese love song that ⅓ of the world population knows. Honestly, I didn't know whether to laugh, cringe, or be impressed by his half-decent grasp of Mandarin lyrics (probably a bit of all 3). Still, I don’t think this outweirded all the old ladies in Vietnam using the line “Ohh you so pretty you must be Vietnamese, let me make you pretty dress”.
Meat platter so epic it had to come on legs. This included a blood sausage, which was AWESOME (our first blood sausage experience did not disappoint - I believe you now, mum)
Wine by the litre
One of the rooms in the place. This one featured sleazy old charmer
The courtyard. I spy more musicians
In order to familiarise ourselves with the city, we opted to take a "free" walking tour the next day. 2 guides were waiting, and when it emerged that the group we were doing the tour with consisted of 2 Kiwis, 4 Aussies, an Austrian and an Irish person, the Spanish speaking guide went home sadly with no business. I hope they have a profit-sharing system in their company. Our guide was the founder of the business, and had basically taught himself his excellent English through chatting with tourists and watching a lot of "Friends". Over the next 2 hours, he showed us around some of the main sights and taught us Spanish Colonial Town Planning 101, which featured interesting facts such as:
- Colonial buildings are as tall as the streets are wide in order to always provide shade on one side of the sidewalk
- There are so freaking many churches around because every time the people in charge needed to borrow more money from the Vatican, a contractual obligation was to build a church
- The Spanish really like arches
He also shared some really sobering insights into life in Argentina. Unsurprisingly, life is a bit fucked in a country where the inflation rate was 40% last year, everyone is constantly in debt and distrusts banks so much that they change any left-over pay they have into U.S dollars and hide it in their house. On a lighter note, apparently inflation rate is unofficially measured in "cost of asado" by locals.
Pink church is best church. Also, check out that Masonic eye
Less pink inside, no less elaborate
New obsession: ornate church ceilings
Very traditional colonial town hall
Oh hey, here's another church with an extreme paint job (and bonus intense bell tower)
Señora de Guadalupe says "yep, you're in Latin America now" (with bonus Jesus for extra XP)
We had booked for 3 nights in Salta, thinking that would give us enough time to explore the city and figure out how to get to some of the other towns in the region. However, we did not take into account how crazy everything gets around Carnaval time. Accommodation in Cafayate, the town we wanted to go to next, was either completely booked out or double the price for their annual Carnaval folk music festival for the next 2 days, car rentals were next-to-impossible to get, and even our hostel in Salta wouldn't let us stay a couple of days extra. We ended up booking a couple of nights in another hostel in Salta (which we were doomed to never set foot in - more on that later), and do some day-trips out of Salta instead. That'll teach us to try and wing it around public holidays... Will try to plan ahead better before we hit Peru during Easter time.
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