A day trip in Salta...

The town of Salta is described as a not-to-be-missed destination for travellers in Argentina. To be honest, I hadn’t done much research or reading, and I mainly decided to stop there because it was on the way to where I really wanted to go, Bolivia. I had no idea what to expect, but was confident that it could not possibly live up to all the hype. Arriving after a marathon 28-hour journey after the spectacular beauty of Iguazu Falls, my initial impression was of a dry, hot, dirty town that had some pretty buildings and a nice hill, but I definitely couldn’t see what was so unmissable about the place. I was reliably informed, however, that the beauty of Salta could only really be appreciated by getting out of the city and seeing the surrounding area.

Much as I tend to avoid organised excursions, in Salta they were almost unavoidable if you wanted to see the area, so I booked myself onto a day trip to Cafayate, a town in the mountains famous for its wines and spectacular scenery. If I wanted to do it on my own it would have cost a whole lot more to hire a car for the day, and besides, one of the jobs that I didn’t get around to in my last minute rush to get everything done pre-departure in Melbourne was organising my international driver’s license. I could have tried to organise a group of people from the hostel to hire a car together, but I could have ended up trapped in a car for an entire day with some of the perpetually drugged or drunk, obnoxious, culturally ignorant backpackers that I tend to avoid at all costs.

So I chose to go with an organised tour, and to challenge myself I picked a company that didn’t have English speaking guides. The whole tour was in Spanish, and all the people on the tour were local or from Spain! When I told Fernando, the guy on the front desk of the hostel, that I was going to be going on a tour with this company, he told me that I was crazy, that he remembers another girl who went with them a few months ago and came back complaining that the bus was full of crazy Spanish-speaking octogenarians that wanted to know every detail about her life! I told him I thought it sounded perfect for me, and the truth was, I meant it!

I wasn’t on the bus half an hour before I was totally absorbed in the scenery, and I am happy to report that it was just as beautiful and inspiring as the guidebooks say it is, and definitely made it worth a visit. The road to Cafayate contained some of the most impressive contrasts that I’ve ever seen… Along the 186km road we passed through white sandy desert, lush green vineyards, spectacular natural rock formations, dry and barren desert like plains… But the most amazing scenery was definitely in the canyons that we drove through. There was a couple on the bus that had been to the United States, and spent time in the Grand Canyon, and they insisted that the road to Cafayate was a lot more impressive than anything they saw there.

The guide rattled on throughout the bus trip, citing facts, anecdotes, scientific information, pausing only occasionally to let us all out for a photo stop. I could probably have learnt a lot more about the landscape and formation if I was in an English speaking tour, because I could only pick up the gist of the ideas explained by the guide. The rock formations were apparently caused by three things, strong winds that gust through the area, rain, and natural erosion. The whole are used to be ocean in prehistoric times, which means that there are a lot of minerals in the sand, and shells can be found through the entire area. The entire zone is free from pollution, and the richness in minerals means that the earth is incredibly fertile, so that the things that do grow along the river are organic and incredibly tasty. The wine was just divine. We also stopped along the way at a goat farm, and we got to try some goat’s milk cheese, and ‘dulce de leche’ (a kind of thick sweetened condensed milk that is a little like caramel) made from goat’s milk. To be honest (sorry mum and dad) I’m not a huge fan of goat’s cheese, and this stuff was pretty awful, but the dulce de leche made from goat’s milk was simply divine.

The tour bus had a range of people, some younger independent travellers like me, but mostly it seemed to cater to the retired-local market, just like Fernando warned. I sat in the front seat (fantastic views) next to a 72 year old lady called Norma, who delighted in telling me about her children and grandchildren, and lamented her lack of great grandchildren! She also enjoyed telling me about her adventures on the internet, the people that she has met through chat rooms, and spent the entire day sending text messages and taking digital photos on her new mobile phone! An incredibly funky lady indeed! She had five of her closest friends with her, and they were taking a week long holiday from Buenos Aires, to see the sights. They were all fantastic ladies, full of laughter and joy, and kind of adopted me from the beginning. When I couldn’t understand something the guide said, they took pains to explain it to me. One time when the guide was speaking too fast they even asked her to slow down for me! So although I would have probably learnt a lot more about the history of the place in an English speaking tour, I definitely had a lot more fun with the group that I was with, and wouldn’t have changed things for the world.