Salta was to be our last stop in Argentina and it proved to be quite an interesting one. On the very first day Heather discovered the hill overlooking town but at least it had a gondola to the top (phew) - However, we did walk back down and met several fitness fiends jogging up ….. Crazy people - We went for a beer.

We went to the "Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana" in search of culture and it proved to be a fascinating museum, their prize exhibit was three perfectly preserved frozen Inca children that were excavated from a mountain top sacrificial tomb, by a team of explorer/archaeologists funded chiefly by National Geographic - The leader of the exhibition turned out to be Johan Reinhart, who we had actually met randomly at a Nadaam festival in Mongolia (reflected glory) …….. In 1999 he directed the excavations of three exquisitely preserved mummies at over 22,000 feet (6,739 m) on Llullaillaco, the world's highest archaeological site. In 1995 and 1999 Time selected Dr. Reinhard's finds as among "the world's ten most important scientific discoveries" of those years - Wikipedia

On this stop we got our first taste of Inca ruins and made a number of trips to the surrounding areas to visit some of the archaeological sites high in the mountains and we were starting to feel the altitude, breathing had become laboured.

On the second last day we decided to go horse riding, eight hours in the saddle with a break for lunch. It was brilliant, two Gaucho guides and an excellent group - Jon & Kate from England, Charlie & Jo also from England and an Australian musician called Mathew we bonded well and at lunchtime our host Enrique ably assisted by his New Zealander sidekick, provided endless food accompanied by several bottles of red wine over a two hour period. The afternoon's riding was wild but miraculously nobody was injured and we parted in (very) good spirits.

On our final day Jo arrived in town - We had met her twice previously in Patagonia and Iguassu, so a night out was called for. We ended up in a restaurant/bar and many of the locals arrived with musical instruments. After consuming a fine steak meal, the red wine and music took over and the "hoolie" went on through the night, although we left at 3.00am because our bus was leaving town at seven and we didn't want to miss it - Farewell Salta, Farewell Argentina.