Our Great Adventure: Salta Day 241 17/05/2015

Bloomers is a nice little place to stay with coloured rooms and artisan furnishings. The price of accomodation in Salta seems very expensive, no doubt reflecting the popularity of town, so we were pleased to have found somewhere nice within budget. We had a leisurely start to the day given our late arrival. Breakfast was quite a treat, fruit, cereal, eggs, toast and medialunas washed down with juice and tea/coffee. The best we've had for a long time (although the medialunas in the local cafe in Cordoba probably beat these). Afterwards we walked down to the bus station to buy our tickets for our onward travel to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Four companies operate between the towns however only one runs on Wednesday when we want to go, making the choice easy. The area surrounding Salta is suppose to be lovely with indigenous villages, puna landscapes, canyons and eroded rock formations. We decided to book a tour for tomorrow to get to see some of it. The local bus is an option but it restricts the ability to stop off at the various parks and attractions. There are numerous operators in the town centre all appearing to offer similar tours so we opted for the company recommended by the b&b. It seems a little bit more expensive than some on offer but hopefully this will be reflected in the quality! Salta was founded in 1582 and it's the most touristy spot in nortwest Argentina. As far as south american towns go it's quite attractive largely due to the number of colonial buildings and beautiful churches that have survived. The main square, Plaza 9 del Julio, is surrounded by numerous cafes and we stopped at one for drinks before walking up to the railway station. One of the things Simon was really keen to do whilst we are here is to take the El Tren a las Nubes, the train to the clouds, which ascends the Quebrada Del Toro to reach the Andean plateau. Unfortunately when it does run it goes only Saturdays so we were out of luck but thought we'd walked up to the station to see if we could see the train, walking through an artisan market on route. We couldn't see anything that looked remotely like it stood any chance of moving so headed back towards town, stopping for lunch at a very busy restaurant overlooking Plaza Guemes that to our delight had vegetables and salad on the menu. Suitably refreshed we walked back to Plaza 9 de Julio intending to go to the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana. We'd checked the opening times earlier in the day (1100 to 1900 inc Sundays) so were very surprised to arrive just before 1600 and find it closed. It should be open on Tuesday so hopefully we can go then. We headed back to the b&b to chill out before dinner at a local parrilla. Simon had pork with carrots in a black beer gravy, apparently his second best meal since we've been in south america. Diane had pasta which as usual here was seriously over boiled. Will definitely have to find out what the spanish equivalent is of 'al dente'!.