After 10 days in Bolivia it was time to travel to our next country, Argentina. At 5:00am we took a taxi 1.5 hours to the border town of Villazon. The border wasn’t open yet, but there was a short line of about 15 people already formed. We joined the line and at 7:00am it was quick and easy to get through. Neither of us got stamped out of Bolivia or in to Argentina. For breakfast, a stall nearby had just set out some fried mashed potato balls before we crossed into Argentina. We used our last Bolivian cash to buy two of them stuffed with ham and cheese, they were so delicious. A quick walk across the bridge and we were officially in Argentina by 7:08am.

Our bus to our final destination was scheduled for 8:50am, so we thought we had 1.5 hours to get to the station and then wait around. As it turned out, there was a time change between Bolivia and Argentina so we only had to wait 30 minutes. We were both relieved we gave ourselves such a large buffer, that could’ve been bad otherwise! The bus process was pretty straightforward, except instead of the front row seats together on the second floor of the bus that I chose, they assigned us random seats in the bottom floor not beside each other. The woman beside me got off after 17 minutes, though, so Nick was able to come and sit beside me after all. We did not have any local currency yet as there were no ATMs on the way to the bus station so our luggage fees ended up being a bit expensive since we had to use our US dollars. The bus had only one stop, which, was for a drug sniffing dog who absolutely loved his job. Everyone got off the bus and collected all of their belongings. Everything was laid out on the road and the dog excitedly ran up and down everything, leaving dusty paw prints on several bags. He was adorable.

We arrived about 30 minutes late, which was not too bad for a day bus. It was a nice and short walk to the hostel where they had accidentally double booked our room. Their solution ended up working out even better for us, though, which was to put us in an apartment. They had an apartment a few blocks away that we got all to ourselves instead of our room in the hostel, perfect. We treated ourselves to some McDonald’s for dinner, which included some dulce de leche ice cream cones, then went straight to bed. It was an easy but long day.

Nick and I were still tired from the day before, so our exploration day was only about 4 hours long. To me it felt like 8, though. Lunch at Quebracho Empanadas was our first stop and it was the best meal we had in Salta. They did wood fired made to order empanadas. Nick tried one of each: cheese, meat, and chicken. It was such a good way to start the day. Following lunch we made our way to the first church of the day, Catedral Basilica de Salta, a pink church near the square. It was between masses so we popped in to check out the aisles.

Basilica Menor y Convento de San Francisco en Salta was the next church. It was also beautiful on the inside and outside. Outside was a bright orange/red color and inside had many nooks with statues of various saints. They had construction going on right in front of the church so it was difficult to get a good photo from farther away. After the second church it was time to get second lunch at Restaurante Fai. There we tried a humita (a traditional tamale) and tamales. They were both okay. I’m glad we tried the humita, but won’t get it again. We also shared a slushie with the flavor ‘Gaudople flores’, which tasted like vanilla cake.

On our walk to San Martin Park we passed a small lake where people could paddle small row boats. It was nice area with many vendors and lots of cotton candy temptations I tried to look away from. Once in the park we decided not to do the Teleferico San Bernardo (a cable car that would take us to San Bernardo’s Hill). It ended up being more expensive then I budgeted and they must of been on a lunch break as nobody was running the ticket booth and there was a long line. For dinner we had sandwiches from Mak Lucas Group. They were pretty good. We were mostly just interested in trying them since we walked past many streetside sandwich shops.

Nick had eventually caught my cough and was not able to join on our pre-booked day tour of Cafayate. He felt like it would be rude to join a bus with other people if we didn’t know how contagious he was with how much he was coughing. It is not often I do solo adventures, but off I went at 6:30am (with several men making kissing noises to me driving past on their motorcycles; I walked without Nick for 5 minutes to the pick up point and I already missed his presence). The bus came to get me on time and we started the long drive. We drove past some mountains, fields of tobacco, and vineyards. I was the only person of the 28 person bus that didn’t speak Spanish. The guide would speak in Spanish for 20-40 minutes at a time and if I was lucky I would get a 5 minute translation. I did book the English speaking tour so either I was put on the wrong one or there were not enough people on it for it to be it’s own tour.

The first stop was a bathroom stop at what seemed to be a bird rescue facility/ bakery. The building had a dozen pies and other desserts on display and outside had a large amount of birds and some goats. I tried a donut with raisins inside (I didn’t know that ahead of time) and a grapefruit drink. They were fine but not my favorite. Up next we stopped at a viewpoint of a valley that was labelled kilometer 69 (and referred to as that).

Third stop on the day trip was a rock formation called Devil’s Throat. The sun was in the wrong position so it was difficult to see it was so bright. Every tour seemed to be on the same schedule so I ended up walking in a crowd of 100 people. It wasn’t my favorite. The entire day I never came across anyone who spoke English, which is normally not an issue when I’m with Nick since he has basic Spanish knowledge. It happened twice that someone who needed to speak with me knew more French than English, so I had to use my second grade level French to communicate.

The fourth stop of the day was some random spot on the side of the road. To be honest I am not sure why that was a stop, especially when we drove past some of the more notable rock formations in the area. We drove past rocks shaped like a man, frog, and a cube. The next stop was next to the Titanic shaped rock. It looked like it a lot from farther away but once we were up close the illusion of the shape was gone, at least for me. It was cool to see as we drove up to the pull up spot though.

The fifth stop of the day was what I assume was most people’s highlight, the vineyard. Once there our van and about two others all got a tour of the winery from the owner. Again, everything was in Spanish (not surprising) so I didn’t learn anything about the place. I have picked up quite a bit of Spanish from being in South America for a few months, but Argentinian Spanish is so much faster and sounds like they drop some letters when speaking. The owner seemed nice, though, and everyone clapped a lot at the end for him. The wine tasting started with their white wine, which was delicious. After that each wine was a variant of a dry red, which I couldn’t drink any of. It was still a fun experience, though, even if the reds were not my favorite. They never are, so I am used to that. The dog loved catching wine corks and was excitedly bouncing up and down in one spot until the wine taste guide threw one for him. He caught the cork easily and did a celebratory spin.

My highlight was the town of Cafayate, which was our stop after the wine tasting. After being forced to the same souvenir shop as every other tour we had 2 hours of free time. My entire van of tourists went to the designated lunch spot (not included) with the guide. Nick had researched some better options for me so I ended up eating at La Casa de Las Empanadas. It was super cute with outdoor seating, live music, and fantastic empanadas. There were about 14 different kinds to choose from and I ended up trying 3. The cheese, tomato, and garlic empanada was my favorite one. The chicken and meat ones were also good. The band was super interactive and the crowd (all Spanish speakers except for me) all sang and clapped along. It was so much fun.

I still had plenty of exploration time after my empanadas. I walked to Los Helados de Sami, an ice cream shop that had a lot of fun flavors. They had cactus fruit, wine, and other local inspired kinds. I stuck with dulce de leche, though, a personal favorite. After my ice cream I walked the town square, which had many vendors. There were leather stalls, ponchos, ceramics, and jewelry. I found a nice ceramics stall and got a nice hand made mask for hanging on the wall. We don’t get that many souvenirs, but it is nice when we find stuff that matches our color scheme. There was also a super cute donkey wandering the streets.

At 3:15pm it was time to hit the road again and make our way back to Salta. On the way we stopped at the Amphitheater, another well known rock formation. It was also incredibly busy, but was a nice opportunity to stretch the legs. My favorite part about it was all the green parrots that lived in the very top of the cliff in holes. They were too high up to take photos of, but I could see and hear them.

It was a long day and we ended up back in Salta at 7:40pm after over 14 hours of driving around. I was so tired. Nick and I walked to Dona for dinner as it was the closest restaurant that was open before 8:30pm that he had found for us. It ended up being super touristy and not as good as the other spots we had eaten at in Salta. We tried locro, a traditional soup, and some empanadas. According to Nick I talked about the tour for 45 minutes straight, I was definitely socially deprived after my day. I also snored that night.

Check out was at 11:00am so we took advantage of the few last hours we had in the apartment. After that we left our bags at the hostel and went for a little walk around the city. Most places were closed due to a national holiday, but we were able to get some hot dogs for lunch. Hot dogs seemed to be a popular food item in the city since there were so many stalls for them. Post hot dog we did a walk around the square and pedestrian streets one last time. There were also two ice cream breaks, one vanilla cup and then a dulce de leche cone later on. If we had known we would’ve seen the dulce de leche it would’ve just been one ice cream stop, but I was definitely not complaining. For dinner we got some burgers from a place that was open called Mostaza Salta Peatonal. We enjoyed our short time in Salta as our introduction to Argentina.