De Buenos Aires a Salta

Blog from May 16 to May 21
BsAs to Iguazu
From Buenos Aires we caught a 20hour bus to Puerto Iguazu. This is the town on the Argentina side of the Iguazu Cateratas (falls). The hang over both Brazil and Argentina. Just quietly, they blew my mind. A jeep through the jungle (that had ucalypts...crazy!) and then so much damn water, we were soaked (seemed we were the only under prepared ones) after the boat ride underneath them. Spent a day wandering around the trails that lead in and out of the falls and along the top. Awesome butterflies and the sun even attempted to come out a few times. Sorry again, photos are on the way, computers here in Bolivia aren´t quite ready for such technology.

Iguazu to San Miguel de Tucaman
From there we planned to go straight to Salta more north west in Argentina but instead I suggested to get off the bus after 20 hours (no food bar one ham and cheese sanger and the man had a very unfriendly disposition. Not to mention the todler who yelled Mama for 8 hoours!) and hang out in Tucaman, Argentinas equivalent to Seymour (immediately after getting off the bus we booked a way out to Salta at 8am the next day)! Alright, not that bad, but we did stay in a place that would´ve fallen down had it not been for the thick layers of mould on the walls! Good empanada, good wine and a massive hamburger (see i told you, Seymour!!) sweetened the stay.

Tucaman to Salta
Then it was 5 hours to Salta. nother bus, but five hours was a power nap after the past few trips, and they put us on the wrong bus so it was like 1st class QANTAS. No complaints!

Salta was cute. We met a couple of Aussie chicks and an English chick who´d hired a car so set off on a 12 hour day trip. Saw some amazing tiny towns nestled in the sides of rainbow coloured mountains in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The wind and cold is unbearable and gee, I never knew you could make so much out of Llama, as well as eat it!

Of course we got a flat on the way back and as much as I fancy myself as a bit of a handy man the jack wouldn´t stay grounded in the shit gravel and rocks. So after the car tumbled down 4 times we flagged down some local men who ´just hapened to have a crow bar and other tools´in their car, handy! The put the bung tyre unber the car and dug around it deep enough to put the new one on, no english here folks, great photo ops though! So I´ll spare you the rest but we got back late and proceeded to consume a lot of the most spectacular pisco sours (pisco, lemon and egg whites Leish!!). Had the best meal too, Locro, traditional Andean or Argentine (not 100%) stew. A very wide variety of meats (and fat and organs, I just didnt ask...) and legumes all stewed to perfection, tastiest ever. Very similar to Dads cassalette with the 8 different types of (quality) meats. Estaba Buenisimo!

The Meat Challenge
Prue and Dani, (two gorgeous ladies from Melbourne) and I have begun the meat challenge, a more updated version is till to come but a brief overview is: All the normal meats, chicken, beef, pork, other cuts of the same meat etc. Also, stewed and deep fried Llama, deep fried Spam, Goat, Intestines (probably cows), blood snags (all squishy, nothing like the ones at home, not that I enjoy them either). So I´ll keep you posted.

Found Rory a massage in Salta (the one place that didn´t do happy endings) to get rid of the head ache from all the buses and stayed in a great hostel that gave us clean towls EVERY DAY!!! I really enjoyed Salta but as it was not a huge place, we exhausted most of the activities and...

Salta to La Quiaca, walk over to Bolivia to Villazon mad bus to Tupiza and 4 days in a jeep (minus 25degrees, see next blog!)