Singing Salta's Praises

This is the first installment of my two-part series on our time in Salta, Argentina. Please see the following post for part two.

I'm writing this post from a small internet café in the desert. We're in San Pedro de Atacama, which is a 2000-strong town in roughly the middle of absolutely nowhere, Chile. We are surrounded by dust, salt flats, dirt, and shrubbery. However, as we just arrived tonight following a much shorter and altitude sickness-free (thanks to some offensively potent garlic pills that the pharmacist recommended) bus trip, a fuller description will have to wait until the next post.

Now, I want to tell you about Salta, Argentina. As Dylan briefly alluded to in his last post, there was some tense logistical maneuvering to get us to Salta in a satisfactory manner. The details are irrelevant, but let's just say that Dylan threatened to go to Bolivia instead of joining me. That's right. Needless to say, I was really hoping Salta would be a great time so that he would feel foolish for his threat.

Over the course of the past five weeks, we've made many petty, small, often embarrassing side bets to pass the time. Does Slovenia border Italy or not? It does, I was ashamed to confirm. Are Julia Roberts and Richard Gere more than five years apart in age? Of course they are, I was glad to point out. It pains me to admit that I'm losing that war by a tally of 5-3 right now. However, like a true champion, I came through in the clutch, and you'll be pleased to know that this particular wager was won decisively by yours truly.

There were many things we loved about Salta.

One of the first that we noticed was the weather. Understand that Dylan and I have both been constantly cold for about five weeks straight. Inside, outside, on a bus, awake, asleep... nothing has mattered. I've been able to see my breath in my bedroom several times, and long sleeves and jackets have been mandatory attire every day, with perhaps one exception in Mendoza. Salta, on the other hand, was 74 and sunny every day. It got cool at night, but the coldest Salta night was still warmer than most of the previous days. That was a very welcome change.

Our hostel in Salta was terrific. Warm showers, fresh breakfasts with great coffee prepared on demand by the delightful owner, Ignacio, and comfortable beds. All things I have come to appreciate on a daily basis. No longer do I take any of them for granted.

Salta's main plaza takes the honors for the best we've seen yet. Surrounded by cafés dotted with locals lazily sipping espressos, the plaza is home to Salta's magnificent pink cathedral and tasteful, subdued fountains and patios, accentuated by the occasional palm tree. Unfortunately, Salta's plaza did continue an unfortunate trend. Dylan and I have both come to love banana milkshakes (called licuados) on this trip, and we've been on a pace of two or three a week. Inexplicably, every time we try to get a licuado on a sidewalk café, what we get back is next to undrinkable. It makes us sad, because sidewalk cafés seem like the perfect place to enjoy a milkshake.

After having some relatively mediocre meals in Chile (Dylan would say I'm a bad orderer), I personally was elated to return to a country that prides itself on its beef. I've already related to you the story of our first good meal, the one meant for four people. Rest assured that the others followed suit. In fact, I was very glad to arrange for four straight days with steaks or ribs as the main meal. Best of all, I haven't heard the word "fish" come out of Dylan's mouth since we've been here.

We celebrated the fourth by going out with an American girl named Danielle and a British girl named Vicky who refused to drink anything and stood way too close while explaining British royalty to me. We hit up a few bars, including one with a live band, played a few games of pool, drank lots of Budweiser, and finally went to a club until it closed at 5. Incidentally, I hate clubs. In any event, I was a little sad to experience an Independence Day without fireworks or hamburgers or "Stars and Stripes". Although my sadness was tempered by witnessing Dylan propose a toast to Barack Obama. (On a side note, we haven't been asked about the president that often, although all such inquiries are always in the form of "Do you like Barack Obama?" and there is only one acceptable answer if we want to continue to be served.)

Sunday was a bit of a quiet day. We did see a parade of what seemed like an endless supply of gauchos, the very traditional residents of much of South Americas rural farmland - cowboys, if you will, on horseback. We must have seen a thousand of them, and there was no end in sight when we decided we had seen enough. Really, there's only so many you need to see before you get the idea. And we took a slow ski lift thingy to the top of the big hill that overlooks the city. It was underwhelming compared to Santiago, I would say, though we did have some good coffee as we watched the sun set over the mountains.

Monday, our final day in Salta, deserves it's own entry, and so it shall be.