Salta Salta

We took Mercobus Plus Ultra (sounds promising, right?) from Cordoba to Salta. It wasn’t as good as our ride with General Urquiza from Buenos Aires to Cordoba, but it wasn’t too bad either. The bus was pretty empty so we were able to move seats as the A/C was not working on ours. We arrived in Salta nice and early and hung out at the bus terminal for a bit, waiting to buy our onward bus ticket to Chile for the next morning. I feel crazy that it doesn’t bother me to take almost 36 hours of buses within 5 days. In the past, it would  seem unbearable to me, but now I find it pretty relaxing. I like the bus. It doesn’t beat flying, but it’s not so bad.

The day before leaving Cordoba we still did not have a place to stay for our one night in Salta. Before leaving, we were referred to a place which did not exist on the internet but luckily they had availability. When we showed up, we must have woken the owners as they seemed pretty disoriented. They showed us to our private double room which turned out to be a 4 person dorm, but we were the only ones staying in it for the night. You know what that means! We each had a bunk bed to ourselves. Yippee.

Salta is a pretty cool city full of mostly indigenous people (mainly the Quechua) from Peru and Bolivia. The indigenous influence was apparent in the food, which was a welcome change from the universal menu in Buenos Aires. I was missing my tamales! Salta also has the best empanadas. We ate a lot.

 

We also visited the local market which reminded me a lot of the flea markets in Houston. There were stands selling all sorts of spices. We also found some Coca leaves there. We needed these for our upcoming bus ride to Chile. Apparently the border crossing is about as high as Lhasa, Tibet and all of the Atacama desert is pretty high, too. We heard that if you chew the coca leaves a day or two before reaching high altitudes, you are less likely to suffer from altitude sickness. We picked up our leaves and got to chewin’. Oh, and for those of you who think coca leaves is el mismo as coaine: false. Cocaine does come from the coca plant, but it involves a lot more than just the leaf plus there’s a whole chemical process. I like to think of it as the same as pseudofed is to ephedrine.

he has coca leaves in his cheek. it’s reminiscent of chewing tobacco

We also visited a museum that displayed the perfectly preserved bodies of 3 Inca children who were sacrificed on one of the highest mountains in the world, which is near Salta. It is so high up there that the freezing temperatures and low amounts of oxygen kept the children and their belongings (they were sacrificed with hand woven/made things they would need in the ‘next’ world) preserved for 500 years! So preserved that their little red scarves and clothing were as red as the spices in the above picture. It was really fascinating (and pretty creepy) to see all of this up close. Oh and by the way, it was an honor to be chosen for the sacrifice. I thought that maybe they were children from the lower rungs of the Inca social class, but it is quite the opposite. They were royalty. Read more about it here (and see photos!), it is truly fascinating: Unveiling ancestors of the mountaintop

Of course, we ate some more steak in Salta. This time we discovered the Parillada or mixed grill, ordered a la Abby, aka without kidneys, organs, stomachs, and the like.

-A