Salta: Goin' to the Flats

This long weekend, we went to Salta, which is in the northwest of Argentina near the borders of Chile and Bolivia. We took a 20 hour bus ride there. Yes...20 hours in a bus. It was actually really easy and super comfortable. They serve wine -- for free!

When we arrived, 20 hours later, we checked into our first hostel and then climbed a mountain in Salta. It was quite a struggle, especially because of the high altitude...I think some of the old women and babies were moving faster than us. We got a great view of the city and then took a gondola (like they have in Switzerland) back down.

The next day, we took our first 14 hour tour of the nature that makes Salta a must-see location. At 6:30 am, we headed out to the Eastern Mountain Range and went to see the Salinas Grandes. These are called the salt flats. This is all salt -- no joke.


To prevent altitude sickness, our tour guide gave us coca leaves. Yes...coca leaves that are used to make cocaine. Coca leaves are imported from Bolivia, however, they are only sold here in small quantities and cannot be carried outside of Argentina. The fear is that without control on coca leaves consumption, individuals would buy kilos of them and start making their own homemade cocaine. Anyways, the 8 or so coca leaves I used definitely did help with the altitude!

We also went north to the state of Jujuy and browsed around a typical feria (open air market). The people of northern Argentina look much more indigenous like people in Peru and Bolivia. In the north, when the country occupied was by the Spanish, the indiginous people were not killed off like in Buenos Aires, but used as slaves to work the land. At least the people and their culture remains here and was not completely lost.

At the end of our day, we followed the path of the train to the clouds. We even walked across a narrow train track over 30 feet above the ground!