In Salta

Hey everyone,

We are writing to you from Salta, a city on the north of Argentina, close to the Bolivian and Chilean borders. We arrived here on Sunday evening, but the story of how we actually got here is quite an interesting one.... We bought the cheapest bus ticket we could find and our punishment was that we arrived six hours late. The bus was supposed to arrive in Salta at 2 p.m, and it didn't get in until about 8 p.m.!!! In fact, at 2 p.m. we were stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere watching the driver pour buckets and buckets of water into the back of the bus, trying to get it to start... that lasted until about 4 p.m.... once we finally got back on the road, the bus broke down another four or five times, each taking a good twenty minutes here and there to fix. It was ridiculous. And when we were driving, the bus only went about sixty km an hour because of its fragile condition. Perhaps the funniest thing was that through all the stops, and the fact that we were six hours late, the driver never once apologized for any the delay or explained what was going on.... and we didn't get any money back when we arrived!!! Everything else about the bus was ok: the food was pretty good, the seats were comfortable and we were kept entertained with latin music videos like every song Ricky Martin has ever recorded in Spanish and "Gasolina". But there were coackroaches all over the place... like crawling on us....

We really love Salta. It is a a lot smaller, calmer and less polluted than Buenos Aires. Also, the men are a lot less forward in the streets, which is a nice change (in Buenos Aires every man you pass will say something to you, from comments like "you're so beautiful" to.... well, I won't get into translating some of the others!!). It is also a little cheaper, which is nice for us!

Yesterday was a our first full day in the city. We walked through the downtown, went into some beautiful old churches and took a cable car up to the top of one of the many mountins that surround the city. At the top of the mountain we got off the cable car and took in the spectacular view. There was also a waterfall, and a statue of a Saint holding a cross that was carried up and placed on the top of the mountain over a hundred years ago!!

We went to the "Museum of Anthropology", but it was pretty disapointing. It kind of reminded us more of a bad school project of a child in grade six or something... just a bunch of cut out printed pictures of things like animals with writing, all pasted to a board... and some of the "artifacts" were just a dried up old sweet potato or some peanuts in a basket with a little sign that just says "sweet potato" or "peanuts".... and that belongs in a museum because....???

This morning we went on a horseback riding excursion into the mountains that we booked through our hostel. At 9 a.m. this morning this guy named Guillermo, who is a real "gaucho" (that is like a South American cowboy) came to pick us up at the hosel in his car. We then went to pick up a friend of his and her baby Gabi (a boy) and we all drove about an hour or so into the mountains to this huge ranch that used to be a monestary. On the way, we stopped so they could buy meat and cocaine (well, cocaine leaves... Guillermo chewed them all day and says that they are harmless). When we got up to the ranch we got on the horses and the three of us took off on the trail up the mountain. The scenery was incredible. All we could see were mountains all around us... we felt like we were in the movie "Brokeback Mountain". Guillermo was really nice and funny and told us all these stories about the people that live in the mountains and legends about plants and animals. We rode for about 3 hours and then made our way back down to the city after lunch. On the way back into the city, Guillermo stopped at his cocaine store once more to replenish the supply, and to buy us all a beer, which we drank while riding through the city. When we asked, he said he wasn't sure if its illegal or not to have open beer in the car, but he has never been stopped...

We are staying one more day in Salta, and then we are leaving early Thursday morning for a town in the Chilean desert. It is one of the driest places on earth, but has incredible wildlife and natural beauty. We are really excited.

Love,

Alice and Tova