Sedate Salta

I arrived in Salta at 8am on Good Friday. Due to a lack of Argentinian Pesos I decided to walk the 1.2 miles from the bus station to Sol Huasi Hostel. It was a pleasant morning so the walk wasn't too bad despite feeling pretty hungry.

The hostel was in a great location just off the Plaza 9 de Julio, which is the main square. Unusually I was able to check in and go to my dorm room straightaway, which was great and gave me a chance to freshen up before heading out again to get money and food.
 

As it was Good Friday the centre of the city was fairly quiet with just a few other tourists wandering around. Plaza 9 de Julio is one of the nicest squares I've seen on my travels it was filled with lots of trees, plants and pleasant places to sit and watch the world go by. The plaza is surrounded by lots of cafés and restaurants. The main feature is the Iglesia Cathedral, which houses the ashes of General Martin Miguel de Güermes.

I had dinner at one of the small cafes just overlooking the square and treated myself to the 'Menu del Dia', which comprised of two courses for 75 pesos. I had empanadas to start followed by locro. The latter contained chickpeas, butter beans, meat and what I believe was chopped up intestines (I fished these bits out as they were easy to identify).

While I was eating, the evening mass in the cathedral was broadcast over the loudspeakers into the square and culminated in a procession around the plaza. It was interesting to watch especially as this doesn't tend to happen much in the UK. 

When I was in San Pedro de Atacama the WiFi adapter on my laptop broke so while I was in Salta I set myself the task of finding a computer shop, which sold a USB adapter I could use instead. Compunoa had exactly what I needed for 90 pesos and because my laptop doesn't have a CD drive the guy in the shop even helped install it all for me at no extra cost.

I visited the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana, which documents the discovery of three mummies found at the top of Llullailaco volcano, 6,700m up. Due to the climate the bodies and items buried with the them were almost perfectly preserved. The museum was really interesting and shows how the bodies were found and the theories surrounding why they were buried there. The main theory is that they were buried as part of a sacrificial ritual. 

There is only ever one of the mummies on public display at any one time and while I was there it happened to be 'Lightning Girl'. She is named as such because archaeologists believe at some point the area where the girl was buried was struck by lightning and this is what caused the scorch marks on her face and clothes. It was amazing and also a bit eerie to see how intact the body and face was even down to her still having teeth, hair and nails.  

One of my main reasons for visiting Salta was because I had heard the bus journey across the Andes to Chile is pretty spectacular. Two companies offer services to Chile - Pullman and Gemini. I opted for Pullman purely because when I got to the bus station, there wasn't anyone in the Gemini office. My ticket to Iquique, on the Northern coast of Chile, cost 1,215 pesos and I would need to change buses in Calama. It is useful to note that Pullman buses only depart for Chile on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

My bus left at 7am and was full of other tourists heading to San Pedro de Atacama as this is one of the popular routes for that journey. I had managed to get myself a window seat and sat back to enjoy the views. The journey was stunning, but after everything I had seen in Bolivia it kind of fell short for me. I appreciated it, but I wasn't that amazed by it either, which was a shame.

The border crossing was fairly straightforward although a couple of people fell foul to the affects of the altitude with one girl fainting just as she was about to put her bag through the x-ray machine. We were also held up by one passenger, who was trying to bring some sort of tree into Chile and was having a rather heated debate with the customs officer.

As predicted when we reached San Pedro de Atacama the majority of the passengers got off and it was only a handful of us heading on to Calama. There is no main bus terminal in Calama so I had to wait at the main Pullman office for my connection to Iquique at 11pm. The office was perfectly nice with a waiting room and there was even a TV showing some soap operas. I bought myself a completo for dinner from the stand outside as there didn't really seem to be anywhere else to get food along the street.

The bus finally arrived and it seemed to be men who made up the majority of the passengers, possibly miners headed home for a bit. The bus was comfy enough, but it was freezing cold so much so that at one point I had to put my woolly hat on. Thankfully I think so many people complained that in the end they turned the heating up and gave us all blankets to the point where I was actually a little too hot by the time the bus pulled in to the main bus terminal at Iquique at 5.30am.