The South America Chronicles - Diez

Hola from a brand new world, we are in a bit of culture shock at the moment - but more on that later.

Our bus trip from San Pedro de Atacama to here in Salta was adventure enough. The bus was very nice, it must have been nearly brand new, but there was plenty of drama when we hit the Chile-Argentinean border. To begin with, when we arrived there was a huge queue at border control as two other buses had got their first - so we were kept waiting in the bus for about half an hour. Going through the actual control was simple enough, but afterwards we were strangely left waiting in the bus. Neither of the bus drivers bothered to tell us anything, but finally someone managed to get out of them that we were "waiting for documents" and we could be "some minutes". However, after about two hours at the border we were finally told "vamos" and to board the bus. And then we saw the "documents" we were waiting for, as two guys in uniform led a handcuffed guy onto the back of our bus (and we´re pretty sure that this guy got on at San Pedro de Atacama with us). Of course, we were given no explanation, though this only allowed us to dream up all fanciful reasons for what was happening. Though strangely, when we stopped at Jujuy, another city an hour out of Salta, the guy got off the bus with his escorts, but now with no handcuffs on and he even shook hands with the drivers as he left!?

The rest of the drive was comparatively uneventful, though we were obviously not going to make it to Salta by 9pm anymore (though the bus drivers went like maniacs to try and do so). The scenery over the Paso de Jama was pretty spectatacular, even though we had seen similar over the past few days on the Uyuni tour and around San Pedro.

We eventually arrived at a hot and sticky Salta just before 11pm and popped out for what we thought would be a late dinner. Not so though, as whole families were arriving for dinner as late as midnight. It doesn´t feel like we have come to a whole new country, it is like we are in a whole new continent. The whole place has a very Mediterranean feel, you could be anywhere in Spain or Italy, or sometimes even home in the UK or NZ. The people even look completely different and sometimes it is difficult to work out who is tourist and who is local. And it is so nice to receive customer service again and not feel like someone is trying to rip you off all the time. Though plastic surgeons must be making a killing around here, there are big boobs and shiny faces everywhere you turn.

It seemed we were heading home early at 1am, but I was feeling very unwell again and we had decided that we would need to track down a medical clinic the next day and get to the bottom of this, once and for all. After a very civilised (an apt term for this country) coffee around the main plaza that morning, we did get to medical clinic and spent the next couple of hours going back and forwards, providing samples (blood, urine, and the "other") and talking to a Doctor who was very helpful - he even jumped out of the gym to see us later that night when we got the blood and urine test results back. So far we still don´t know what is wrong with me and we have to wait for the "other" test results to come back. It´s silly, but when you are not feeling well you don´t want to be told that there is nothing wrong with you, you just want a diagnosis that can be treated somehow. However, the Doctor did give me a diet to follow, but as it has such blasphemies as "well done steak", I can´t see myself following it - come on, "well done steak", I´m in Argentina!

Later in the day it also started to rain in Salta - the Doctor told us it was the first rain here in six months. I´m not sure how we do it, but somehow we have this affect on places. But I guess such weather was appropriate for what happened later that afternoon, and despite the rain the day was obviously anything but "all black". To buoy the spirits, we headed out for our first steak in Argentina at a place I have read many recommendations for the best steak in Argentina - a heady claim. But it proved to be a very good recommendation. We were joined for dinner by an English couple we have met - James & Petra - and we ended up having a fairly big night. In our guidebook it mentions that the restaurant gives you a free glass of champagne when you arrive. We got this, but then a lot more. It seemed that we had an never-ending supply of champagne, and by the end of the night we (groggily) calculatedthat we probably had nearly two bottles of champagne each! I´m not sure whether our waiter was gunning for a good tip (which he most definitely got), but he just kept on leaving 3/4 full bottles of champagne on ourtable. This was even after we had finished ourmeal (which was absolutely delicious by the way), we were there for over two hours after our plates had been cleared away. To say the least, we were all very high from the champagne when we left, though there were some sore heads this morning.

Today has been fine again, and we took the gondala up to the hill that overlooks the city and then cleared the head by walking back down. This was just in time to catch two big sporting events this afternoon - first was the Buenos Aires football derby Boca Juniors vs River Plate, and then Argentina´s World Cup quarter-final against Scotland. The football game, the biggest of the year, had actually been moved to an earlier time so that it didn´t clash with the rugby, which locals told us was unheard of. We had been told that we should look to find a place to watch both the football early, as everywhere would be packed - and they weren´t wrong. We had also been told that the place to watch sport was in the cafeterias - which we were a bit sceptical about. But they weren´t wrong. All the cafeterias were packed, with big screens set up in front of tables - bizarrely, most bars were quiet, despite also having TVs. We managed to find ourselves a spot in a cafe after a bit of wandering around, and the football game didn´t disappoint, River Plate winning 2-0 in a fiery game. Strangely, with their national team about to begin a huge game in the Rugby World Cup, most of the people cleared out of the cafe after the football finished. This just shows the relative importance of football and rugby in this country - a football game between two teams from another city is of more interest than the national rugby team playing a historic match. The River Plate fans (from Salta remember) even paraded around the square as the rugby was on. Though the rugby didn´t disappoint for those who stayed to watch, and we are looking forward to watching the game next weekend in Buenos Aires (and after this weekend, who would be brave enough to say the Argentina can´t make the final).

Of course, not satiated enough last night, we headed out for more steak, this time at a place we were told the locals go for their red meat fix. And it didn´t disappoint, though we way over-ordered, getting a steak each, when each piece was enough to feed a small family. I think we both have iron coming our our ears at the moment.

Tomorrow we are picking up a car to drive a loop south of Salta, checking out the scenery of the Calchaqui Valleys and visiting out the local vineyards. We are both looking forward to the freedom of having a car for a few days. When we get back we are then catching the bus to Buenos Aires, going with the mac-daddy of buses, the Suite Premium - which has fully reclining seats and looks to put even airline first-class to shame. It is a little bit more expensive, but if we are going to have to spend 18 hours on a bus, we may as well do it in style. We are going to have the weekend in Buenos Aires, and then on Monday we have booked flights to the Iguazu Falls for a couple of days (we could have got the bus for less, but with plenty of bus hours in front of us, we thought we would take it easy on at least one leg of the trip). We will then come back to Buesnos Aires for a few more days before heading further south and filling out stomachs with more steak and red wine.