Explore.Dream.Discover 2012

After another very  poor nights sleep we boarded our bus heading to Salta, Argentina. The bus still hadn't departed after two hours and it wasn't until a girl got on that we realised we'd been waiting for her the whole time. How can a double decker bus wait for one late passenger?!?! We eventually set off crossing the Andes mountain range and were surrounded by beautiful giant peaks and valleys.  We had to pass through border control at around 3000m I think- well it was definitely high as everyones lips were blue! It took absolute ages to cross but was quite fun. It's weird to think that you are standing on one country's soil one minute and then another's the next, whilst being in the middle of the Andes ranges.  We finally arrived at our destination, Salta. The journey took 12 hours in total.  It was night time when we arrived and time for bed.  Oresti is fast asleep straight away whereas I'm awake waiting for the alarm clock to go off.  I watched Fawlty Towers on my iphone & played some tetris. I hate jetlag.  I finally slept, albeit for 2 hours. But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining and so the next day, Oresti felt sorry for me and I got loads of treats. We had a lovely lunch in the town square, ate delicious ice cream, drank coffee at a cafe and for dinner we had the most amazing argentinian barbeque feast and lovely wine at a cool restaurant. He also bought me a lovely handmade necklace with a turqoise stone. Maybe I should pretend to have jetlag everyday?  Salta is a lovely little town with some beautiful architecture. We wandered the streets and went into a fascinating museum called MAAM, which stands for Museum of High Altitude Archaeology in Spanish.  The most interesting feature there (though I disagreed that it should have been removed from its place of origin), was a real mummy. It had been excavated from the mountains where it remained frozen for hundreds of years.  It was a 5 year old boy who had been sacrificed during the Inca period, and was buried alive in a sitting position facing a particular direction.  Because of the very cold temperature the body froze and so did not decompose at all. The clothing, body, nails and hair were perfectly intact and thought to be better preserved than the Egyptian mummies.  The boy now sits in the museum in a glass cabinet with controlled temperature. I don't think he'll be resting in peace there. We also learnt about the Inca's and that was fascinating.   The restaurant that we went to that evening was fantastic. We were early to arrive and waited for a little while on the kerb before it opened (about 2.5 hours).  It was definitely worth the wait. They were constantly bringing us different meats to eat. The selection was unbelievable and it went perfectly with our salads & Argentine Mendoza wine. We left the restaurant happy and collected our bags from the hostel before making our way to the bus station for our journey to Bolivia.  We jumped on our 12am bus and fell asleep shortly afterwards. No doubt that the bottle of wine helped with this matter. Buones noches and gracias  Argentina.