Salta - our gateway to Argentina

We were already accustomed to the alarm clock ringing before 6am in San Pedro de Atacama. This time, however, we weren't going on a trip to the geysers or the salt flats, but to the bus that would take us to Argentina. And just for this journey alone, it was worth getting up early. We crossed the Andes, passing through more huge desert landscapes and salt lakes. In the late afternoon, we arrived in Salta, our first destination in Argentina.

And we liked it here from the beginning. Firstly, we had missed the city feeling after many days in smaller and more remote places, and secondly, Salta is surprisingly beautiful with its colonial-style architecture. However, since we wanted to spend only two days here, we had to hurry up and explore everything. We devoted our first day to the city itself, went up to Cerro San Bernardo (the highest mountain in the city), explored the architecture of the city, and visited a museum about the discovery of mummified Inca bodies from the 15th century. But the highlight of the two days in Salta followed the next day, when we rented a car and drove through the Quebrada de Cafayate valley. Since it had rained heavily the night before (a very strange feeling for us, as it was the first rain in over a month), it wasn't clear at the beginning of the day whether the road was even passable. After a short call from the car rental agency to the authorities, it was confirmed that the road was "transferable". We later found out what that meant: you can drive, but you have to be prepared for obstacles such as muddy sections or rivers on the road. Nevertheless, the drive was worth it, as it took us through incredibly diverse landscapes with various rock formations and very green vegetation. In general, on the other side of the Andes, the air is noticeably more humid. This can be felt both in our own heat sensitivity and in the very green vegetation compared to the Atacama Desert. The goal of our day trip was the city of Cafayate, about 200KM away, where we had lunch at a nice winery and then returned the same way to enjoy the view once again.

After the initial brief impression, we continue our short detour to Argentina with a visit to the Iguazu Falls. But more on that in the next post...