Costs pp: bus Tilcara to Pumamarca 3p, bus to Jujuy 9p, bus to Salta 23p. Dorm bed at Salta Hostel www.saltahostel.com (not Hostel Salta which is another place) 25p includes free internet.
Other travellers had told us that Pumamarca was a lovely little town so we caught an early morning bus there. It is a nice wee place if you like tourists. The main activity of the place seemed to be the stalls around the town square, for tourists. And they arrived by the busload, monied resort stayers spending their dinero on foibles to take home.
We tried to find a place to park our packs but only the tourist office would do it but wanted an exhorbitant sum for the privilege so we walked about the place humping them. Lucky the town is indeed small, we had had enough in an hour and caught a bus on to San Salvador de Jujuy. The day had been warm and sunny in Pumamarca but as soon as we headed out down the valley we drove into low cloud and mist and cold weather, this stayed with us all the way to Salta.
Jujuy was cold and on arrival at the terminal we just bought another ticket on to Salta. Although it was a long way around to go it gives us a chance to view the landscape this way. The roads are very nice, it feels sort of wierd to be driving on such good roads, and the buses are very good too. In other countries 'collectivos' are cars or utes that carry fee paying individuals to a destination but here they are single level buses. Jujuy is a bustling city and the terminal is surrounded by the usual stalls selling everything you can imagine. Carol went on a hunt for coffee and found some vendors selling empenadas made while you wait and cooked fresh in hot oil and only .50p each. Small but yummy.
The countryside to Salta was uninteresting so although we took a semi-cama bus and were given the front seats with the best views, we spent our time watching the movie 'To be or not to be' shown in english. On arrival at Salta we didn't know what to do, we were approached by a couple of touts but just took their info and sat to decide the next move. After a while we decided we should stay a couple of nights even though it was freezing we should have a look around the town. The Salta Hostel's card said to take a taxi there from the terminal and they would pay the fare so we did. How nice to just hop in a cab and get out right at the place you want to be...
When we arrived there were only 2 other travellers (from Spain) there who happened to be two guys we met in Potosi and again in Uyuni. But in the evening the place filled up and we had a great night talking with everyone and playing a little pool and using the internet.
The next day was still freezing but we headed to the terminal to book our next trip then walked in town windowshopping. We had to window shop because the shops in Argentina apparently close from 1pm until 5pm. This is more like Europe where the shops close like that and open into the evening. We found a shopping mall that was open and had a nosey at the (small 8 - 10 inch) notebook computers there. We would love one and wish we had bought one to carry with us when we were in the states.
That night we caught cama (full reclining seats) bus to Cordoba.
