Salta - Cafayate - Salina Grande

When I arrived at the first hostel in Salta, I was shocked. No one showed me the room, showed me where the toilets were, where breakfast was served, just someone who took my money. The doors of all the rooms were wide open and there were no lockers. Music played all day long, supposedly only until midnight. So I walked to the city center and there too, I didn't feel comfortable at all. On the way there, the streets were completely empty and there were only homeless people in the main square. Somehow everything was different. In Peru, people were poor, but there were rarely real beggars who went from table to table. In Salta, on the other hand, people were peed on, dirty, and wearing torn clothes. Apart from that, the beggars were really persistent. Everyone looked at me strangely and there were pigeons everywhere. In the afternoon, I walked back to the hostel and waited a bit because the tourist office was supposed to open at 5:00 p.m. When I got to the tourist office around 5:30 p.m., it was closed. I was really frustrated and walked back to the city center because I didn't want to sit in the hostel all day. By chance, I found two other open offices where I compared prices and booked two tours.

The next morning, I was picked up an hour late and we drove to Cafayate. I was dead tired because the music next to my room played until 3:00 a.m. and I had to get up at 6:30 a.m.

The way there led through a beautiful mountain landscape. In Cafayate, I had lunch with a Spanish couple and an Argentine woman. Then we had a wine tasting. On the way back, we made a stop at the "Amphitheater". A huge, round rock wall, a flute player whose sound could be heard everywhere because of the good acoustics. Of course, the lunch wasn't the excursion, but actually the round trip. In the evening, I changed hostels. The new hostel was better. There was good breakfast and the common room was cozy. The rooms were rather full and cramped, and the bathroom was cleaner than in the previous hostel but still not clean. Unfortunately, I made a mistake. I only booked the hostel for one night because it was twice the price of the previous one and I was afraid that the new hostel would not be better, so I could only stay one night because it was fully booked.

The next day, I went to "Salina Grande". Once again, the trip was the excursion as we drove through a beautiful landscape and made several stops for pictures. Salina Grande was not nearly as spectacular as Salar de Uyuni, as they were extracting the salt there and many machines were standing in the middle of nature. However, this excursion was worth it as well. On the way back, we made another stop in a small village. In the background of the village were beautiful rock walls of different colors. Unfortunately, the sun was in the wrong position, so I didn't manage to take good pictures.

In the evening, I had to find another hostel. The third hostel was actually the worst. The bed was so dirty that it was really hard for me to fall asleep in it. In my room were three Argentinians who looked more criminal than friendly. They also talked all night long. I couldn't stay there either, so I looked for a fourth hostel in the evening and went there in the morning. The last hostel was really great. No bunk beds, a pool and a kitchen, and above all, it was clean (!!!). However, it was located 3 km outside the city. Since I was pretty worn out, I mainly stayed in the hostel and its surroundings. I could finally sleep in and had nice roommates.

On Fridays, I flew to Mendoza as the price difference between the flight and the bus was small, but the bus took 18 hours and the flight only took 1.5 hours.