Last stop in Argentina - Salta

After another 22 hour bus ride from Iguazu, I arrived bright and early in my last stop in Argentina, Salta. Over the past 7 weeks I´ve been popping around between Argentina and Chile, but in total I was only in Chile for 9 days, and the rest was in Argentina. It´s been amazing, but I would be lying if I said I wasn´t excited to move on to a new country.
Salta is in the NW of Argentina. It´s a smallish town which is most known for it´s proximity to a lot of the smaller towns in NW Argentina, like Jujuy and Cafayate.  There are some beautiful colorful churches, and a mountain (San Bernardo) that you can climb up, similar to San Cristobal in Santiago, to get a view of the city.  On my first day, I set off to the mountain and climbed the 1,070 steps to the top. Since I´m neurotic I spent the whole way up counting the steps to see if they were accurate (Becca, didn´t we do this at that church in Venice?)  I´m not sure if I miscounted or they miscounted or maybe numbers are different in spanish, but I got to 1,088.

After that I found a mall, which would be exciting if I wasn´t still banned from buying things.
When I went back into town I went to this museum called MAAM (Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana). In 1999 these 3 Incan children´s bodies were found on top of Llullaillaco volcano, preserved from they think the 1500s.  The volcano is at 6,739 meters above sea level. To give you a comparison, Potosi in Bolivia is the highest city in the world, at 4,090 meters. Cuzco, which they tell you you need 2 days to acclimate to the high elevation, is at about 3,500.  So this volcano is really high, and was able to preserve the children because of the low atmospheric pressure, low humidity, and low termperature.  They think the Incan children were used as sacrifices, and this museum recreated the conditions they were found in so you actually see one of the children. When I went the boy was on display (7 years old). The other two children are a 6 year old and 15 year old girls.  It was really creepy and I was only able to stay for a couple minutes because I felt like the boy was going to open up his eyes and look up at me.  There was a market 45 minutes outside of the town that I ventured out to, but by this point I´ve already decided I was waiting  until I got to Bolivia to buy anything so it was more just for something to do.
On my second day, I took another ridiculously long bus trip to go to Cafayate.  After the 40+ hours roundtrip to go to Iguazu I don´t know what possessed me to get on a bus, but I did. 3.5 hours each way to go to a town called Cafayate.  It was a beautiful bus trip (the part I was able to stay awake for was, anyway.)  The mountains adoring the road are all pink and have canyons in them made by water.  When we got to the town it was really small, which was consoling because I had thought about spending time in these smaller towns but realized I would have been bored out of my mind. It was good for a few hours - wine tour in spanish, lunch, chocolate, pictures and back on the bus.  On the way back the guide surprised us and pulled over so we could feed llamas!  There was a baby one there and I was, of course, ecstatic. Right next to the llamas they were selling different kinds of salami, including llama salami, which I thought was just wrong. I´m not vegetarian anymore but, I mean, I won´t eat a cow either if he´s standing right next to me watching me dig into his brother with a fork and knife!

Back at the hostel I ended up in a deep conversation with my dorm about this end of the world nonsense.  Turns out everyone there was an athiest, which turned into a bigger discussion about religion, which I felt uncomfortable being involved in because the truth is, I don´t know that much about it. I am a Jew by birth, but  a non-practicing one. I had a brief stint after Israel where I felt closer to having some sort of religion again, but I didn´t carry on any traditions which I think put me back at square one.  For a while I considered myself agnostic, belief in a god but unaffiliated with a particular religion, but after my aunt Rhona died I was kind of lost again, because if there was a god how and why would he take someone as amazing as her?  I don´t want to say I´m athiest either, though, because I do believe we all came from somewhere, and maybe it is through evolution and the bible is just a story but that brings me back to my original statement - this conversation makes me uncomfortable because I really just don´t know enough to have a firm opinion on the matter.  I am going to read Richard Dawkin´s book The God Delusion, which has been on my Amazon wish list for a while now, and maybe then I can participate more in the next conversation.  It´s 4:17 pm here so if the world does indeed end in an hour and 43 minutes, this will be a moot point anyway.

On my last day I took a bus to a neighboring town, San Lorenzo. There´s a nature reserve where you can go hiking, so yet again I ventured out of Salta to do another excursion. The bus ride was relatively smooth, minus not having coins to pay (who knew). A nice man swiped me with his card and didn´t even take my 2 pesos.  I saved 50 whole cents! Sweet!  When I got there, after getting mildly lost trying to follow signs, I find the reserve. There are 4 employees there to check me in. When they sign me in the book, I see that there are 3 names before me, all from yesterday.  The last person had checked in at 10:30 am.  This was now around 11am, so I was the first, and most likely ONLY person going there for the day.  Why they need 4 people on staff baffled me, since my admission price was only $4.  Hopefully more people came after I left but I was there about 2 hours and didn´t see a trace of another human being.  The walk was pretty, with a million more butterflies. Nothing else really to see, but I think I got spoiled after all of the amazing hikes in Patagonia.  I realized I had completely managed to do this entire city in less than 2 days, so spent the remainder of my day wandering around, getting my last tastes of Argentinean food (bye bye Freddo ice cream and dulce de leche!)
After my 7 weeks here, I can say, these are my favorite things about Argentina & Chile:
Town: Bariloche
Activity: Toss-up between the Perito Moreno glacier and Iguazu falls.
Restaurant: La Cabrera in Buenos Aires. Hands down.
Ice cream: Anything from Rapa Nui in Bariloche
Chocolate: Dulce de leche chocolate covered bon bons from Cachafaz
Drink: terramoto
Best hostel: I think the Che Legarto in El Calafate. Decent location, good breakfast, and a shower IN my room. That never happens!
Bus company (and yes there were many): Expresso Singer
Worst part of my trip so far: Toss-up between having to get passport pages added due to 6 exit and re-entry stamps into Argentina, and almost getting robbed at the Retiro station in BA

After Salta I head out tomorrow morning (7am bus. Awful!) to San Pedro de Atacama, to do some sanddune surfing and see the Valley of the Moon.  Just a few days, then into the salt flats in Bolivia!!