Boy was I glad to get off that bus! 18 hours of continuous motion along asphalt all the way to Salta, the main city of Jujuy province in North Western Argentina. The bus was fine, I travelled with Andesmar, the most reputable of what are already extremely good bus companies in Argy. The great thing with these routes is that you can leave point A in the early evening, get fed onboard, watch a movie and then somehow manage to adopt the featel position and try to sleep for the majority of the journey. Waking up, rubbing your eyes and your arse to get some feeling back into it, I must say, your first sights of that day is a tremendous feeling!

Salta is a beautiful city to view from a height as the road rolls into down town. Flanked on each side stands valley walls, towering a few hundred feet about the town. The bus station that I arrive at is modern, clean and close to the city centre but after nearly a full day of my life a bus I was high tailing it out of there ASAP! My taxi brought me to y hostel, aptly named Hostel in Salta, no confusion there. This is where I was to meet my three Swedish friends, Andreas, Jana and Fanny. There chose well too, for Salta was cold too even in the daylight sun. The rooms were small yet cosy, but most of all, warm. It was like walking into the living rooms back at home in the depths of winter with the fire roaring inside. Later that day, I meet up with he guys who had been out galavanting for the day. It was great to see them all again, even though it was just a short 24hrs since I was last on their presence. It was now time to decide what we were to do for the next week or so. Thankfully, a unanimous decision was to rent a car and explore the surrounding towns and villages of Jujuy province and maybe get pissed the following day!

Up early, real early, to catch the bus to a town called Cafayete, hailed for the beautiful wine it produces. This was going to be a good day! The journey south west of Salta took four hours but what made it all the worth while was the scenery out the bus window. We were travelling through the Quebradas de Cafayete or ingles, The Valleys of the Rio's Las Conchas and boy did it have scenery to satisfy. We were all alseep on the bus trying to get a few more hours shut eye but the view was too much to surpass. I dont know how to descibe it really, but images of burnt orange dirt, vast expanses, more cacti that you could ever think of come to mind, sheer beauty all while the bus is navigating the dirt road beneath us. I actually said to myself whilst there that the area would be an amazing place for a concert due to the arched walls of the hills and what the acoustics could actually sound like. And sure enough, I googled it and a French symphony orchestra had played in valley some years back. Thats what it was like! We roll into town and its a small place, thats for sure. A small plaza with a handful of streets leading it off it. The heat, its baking, so I whip off the pants and walk naked... in the bathroom, then I put on my shorts. A helpful lady in the small info office tells us where to head for the vineyards, so off we go. We could have rented bikes but instead we head out on foot in the heat passing some crusties as we do, bathing in the river. At least they were washing before they held up traffic to show off their s***e juggling skills. Its a Sunday, so everywhere is closed pretty much, only for this one jem nestled in the nearby foothills. After trapsing down back roads and bothering an old man for a glass of water, we get in a taxi that appeared out of nowhere to head to this one vineyard that is supposedly opened, Piatelli. This new building appears in the distance, a beautifully built white washed bodega with its door open, hoorah! Its more like a 5-star hotel of sorts, where they whip your arse for you, but we head in or head out as it be and sit in the sun. Gasping with the thirst in the afternoon sun, red wine is definately not the choice so we settle for a cold, crisp white as the afternoon passes us by. It was sheer bliss to be brutally honest and if I had a time machine, I'd be beaming myself there back for sure!

Back in Salta, we had to sort the rental car for the next few days so, in doing so, I suggested that we opt for the old 3 prices rule before jumping at one particular company for the rental. We asked in the hostel reception where we could find one after seeing the astronomical prices they had on offer there. 30mins later, some dude shows up offering whats he's got. Eh, not what we were looking for. If I wanted a financial raping, I would have just handed over my financials there and then with my pants wrapped around my ankles and waited for the prison 'drop the soap trick'. Off we head in town, instead to go search for a more favourable price. After doing the rounds at the usual haunts, Avis, Hertz and so forth, we agreed on a deal with a crowd called Perfil, they sounded like a botched product for making clothes really white but they actually we in the car rental business. A beautiful Chevrolet Corsa was to be our stallion and what is funny about these cars is that they are span new, but the product is about 15 years old or so. Everything in the inside is basically an Opel Corsa circa the turn of the century and rebadged a Chevy with 4 doors and ready for the road.

The road out of Salta we had yours truly at the helm snaking along Ruta 9 heading north. The roads were super narrow, double laned but not enough for two cars to pass alongside each other. Whatever about the size of the small country roads, the scenery was superb. As we racked up the altitude, we had green forests on one side towering over us and huge drops on the other giving the most amazing view over the surrounding landscape. The road was littered with horses and cattle so negotiating these bends as if it were Germanys Nuremburg ring took some patience. Later we pulled over into a quiet town called El Carmen, with nothing to eat around the towns small picturesque square we headed back out to the main road and into this little eatery that was a little dirty. All we wanted was substance, so a few empanadas for a handful of pesos did the trick. The reigns of this beautiful beast of a motor were handed over to Andreas and we headed further north towards Tilcara and Purmamarca. Purmamarca is a small indigenous village which has the most beautiful mountains framing the town. The special thing about the place is that the mountains has seven colours layered over each other from reds, purples to yellows and greens. We got their around sunset too so the colours were really superb in the lessened light. The town was dusty and just ridding itself from the days travellers that had passed through so we thought best to go a get a bed for the night. There wasnt anything else that took our fancy there so we headed back down the road to the main town in the area, Tilcara, to see if the keeper had any room at the inn. We checked a few places but they were either full or out of the price range until one Del Boy at one of the spots says that he has another hostel down the street where we can stay for a budget price. Perfect. In we go and we get a big room enough for the four of us. The only thing about it was that it smelt like a pub toilet from the 1980's, complete with splashed piss and the stench of cigarettes. Our room was clean, so that was all that mattered, so we drop the bags and headed out for some grub. We were recommended this little beauty of a place, Lapeno De Carlitos, totally focused towards gringos and tourists alike, however it did super grub and had live traditional music each night, a bit like Tilcara's Temple Bar pub. I had locro which is basically a stew with llama as the main meat, super tender and delicous. They also did great bread which was something new for South America coupled that with a spicy salsa to boot! Too many fags and red wine, we head home to call it a night, however the delectable staff at the hostel there were having a party that we werent invited too and their main guest for the night seemed to be the f***ing blender! What they needed a blender for a 2 in the morning, I will never know, probably testing out if iPhones blended well. Anyways, it kept me up all night and I wasnt happy!

Following morning, we woke for breakfast and tucked in to what was the most s***e breaskfast I have ever been offered in my entire life. Bread, jam, dulce du leche (caramel spread) and a cup of scald. When we asked if there was any more bread, the owner replied in a huff, "is all the bread gone? I just got 5kg of it a few days ago". Christ almight, the bread was awful, bread needs to be fresh, idiot. Had he ever tasted it, who knows? But what I do know about it or atleast I'll take a good guess at it, was that whomever the baker was, opted out for the ol' ingrediant called yeast, instead replacing it with a cement mix or even worse 10-10-20! Off we head anyways, full of stale cement mix inside our bellys, Andreas again at the helm heading north to a place called Salinas Grandes which is the third largest salt flats in the world. The road we are on rivals Jeremy Clarksons selection as the best driving road in the world in my opinion, somewhere in Austria I think. Our road is called Cuesta Da Lipan and it rides all the way to the top at 4107m above sea level. When we got to the top and looked down, the road below looked so impressive, literally like a race track as its not use that often, winding all the way up the sides of the mountains there. As we came over the brow of the 'hill', the view of the Salinas Grandes ahead opened up. The white of the salt was so white that it can actually blind you, a bit like skiing I suppose, so on with the shades it was. We pulled over a small kiosk where we thought we could get something to eat. Basically what it was, was a hut made entirely from salt, we didnt know it was a shop as it had changed its colour to a dark brown from pure aging I suppose, and the dust the ran rampant in the area close by. We got our overpriced snacks and denied a possible homeless man a lift to the nearest town before heading off. If he wanted a lift, an aul' bar of soap wouldnt go astray thats for sure! The cut of him! We booted across the small road across the flats and into this dusty town, again full of salt huts and found a restaurant that was open. Llama steaks, deep fried of course and some chips did the biz for lunch. Back on the salt, we drove the Corsa out for its maiden voyage on salt, deep into the middle, so that we could try and break a new land speed record! It didnt work though, so we settled for the most arduous task of taking some prespective photos of us on the salt, which suprising turned out alright considering the difficulty it takes to get the snaps right! After all the fun was had driving on the white, we headed back south to the 80's jax that was our hostel and headed out for some dinner, mixing it up of course by heading back to the same place that we were the night before!

Next day was met with a banging hangover and the same mixture of cement in my bread. Jana then took the reigns and we headed further north to a small town called Huamauacha. It was market day when we arrive, so it was great to see all the local artesenal crafts and food thats were on offer. We decided to cheap it up for lunch and headed to the outskirts of the town where none of the tourists that day seemed to have headed. Rather than dive into the llama bones that the locals were tucking into, we settled again for some rather delicious empanadas. However, my dining experience was disturbed by, lets call him, "the chief". The Chief was a indigeonous man in his 60's that sat strong and proud with hands that could slap the moon red! The chief it seemed only spoke the Andean Quechua language so even getting his order across to the lady seemed difficult. Then he started shouting at us and me in particular beside him. Perhaps we were in 'his' seat but we didnt care nor did we care to hang around to see if he was going to go "chasing buffalo" on our arses! On the way back, the hangover was still lingering, so chatter was at a minimum. A time killing game called "Who am I" was then started and one hour later, it was found out with alot of frustration from my Swedish passengers that "Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds" was never released in Sweden. Sorry about that hour of your life guys, your never going to get that back! Heading south, we decided for not another night at the toilet hostel, so we headed for the provincial capital called Jujuy, pronounced 'who-whuy', or something like that. There wasnt much to do there only sleep and eat so we headed to a super restaurant called Viracocha highly recommended and had an amazing meal of llama washed down with an Argy Malbec!

The following day, we headed back home to Salta to drop our car back. We stayed this time in Sol Huasi just off the main square which was great as a location but terrible for horsing bags out of the car on the side of the road. With a warning from the police, we moved the car and drop her home. Salta, as I've said earlier, is a huge city surrounded by mountains and one of the city's highlights is that you can take the teleferico (cable car) from the town centre up to one of the surrounding hilltops. It had a super view with a bar that you could relax at, to enjoy it and sher who do we meet up there, only one of the lads that I had met previously in Mendoza. You can go nowhere! That night, we enjoyed our last supper together albeit a ferociously expensive one, but i wouldnt change it for the world as it was downright delicious and it suited the moment just perfectly in saying farewell to my new friends.

My next stop is on my todd again, heading north from Salta, throught the towns I had already been to cross the border into Bolivia. Saying goodbye to Argentina, an amazing few weeks but it was time for a change and time to start spending pennies instead of hundreds and thousands!