Saltando en Salta
We took another night bus (MicroPlusUltra) from Córdoba to Salta. The buses in Argentina have all been pretty comfortable at night with cozy reclining seats. No one has been able to accomodate a vegetarian dinner (except CATA our first bus in Argentina, but we forgot to ask), but we haven’t been eating much for dinner lately so it hasn’t mattered to us. By the time they serve their typical 10pm dinner on the bus, I’ve already got my earplugs in and am ready to sleep.
Salta is not as hot as Córdoba and the city itself is much more with it. Decent food, happening plazas and pedestrian streets galore. We stayed at a campground that was 15 minutes away by bus and it was sort of a car-camp feeling. It was so nice to sleep in the tent again! It rained really hard at night and our tent is still water repellent, so that’s good news. The cool thing about Salta is not really the town, but the proximity of fun activities. We spent an afternoon paragliding (parapente) with the birds and riding the thermals and it was amazing. I was so scared and the whole experience felt safe and smooth. The ride only lasted about 10 minutes, but that was long enough because after awhile it’s like being on a constant rollercoaster. But it was so beautiful and I’m glad I did it.
The bungee jumping, on the other hand, I opted NOT to experience. There’s rapids to raft as well, but it’s only a Class III and we heard from other travellers that it was pretty tame. We price checked a bunch of tourist agencies (there’s a LOT, and we basically realized that they all use 1 of 2 rafting companies and I think there’s only 1 paragliding company). So, you can’t seem to go wrong and the prices don’t vary too much. We booked our tours through A Las Nubes and they were helpful but didn’t take credit cards.
Our other adventure we did was a day tour following the path of the Tren a las Nubes and visiting a few small towns, ruins and crossing a 4,800 meter pass (my highest yet). We also got to visit the Salar Grande, a huge salt flat that is in use for excavation. Our driver brought us (our group was just us plus two cute young lady doctors from Buenos Aires) to the salt flat and basically set us loose. It rained heavily the day before, so it was like walking in slush except it’s salt water and the slush is corse salt. It was bright and our shoes are still stiff and crusted with salt. After the salt flat our driver brought us to a touristy town that has hills of 7 colors. We ate some local goat cheese and headed back to Salta. The day trip was a nice change of pace. It’s not really our thing to hire a guide and do a tour like this, but the agency offered us a decent discount and we got to see a big ole salt flat. No need to pay $100 for Bolivia anymore!