After surviving the journey of the ham and cheese sandwiches we managed to find the hostel pretty easily with Gareth and Jared from New Zealand who we had travelled from Mendoza with. As it was still early, around 8.30am we weren't able to check into our room yet so headed into the city centre for a bit of breakfast.

After getting into the room at about 11am, we quickly had a shower and headed back out armed with our tourist map to have a look around the city. The first sight we hit upon was the San Francisco church which stood out due to it being painted in bright colours. Unfortunately, we had missed the tour but we did manage to get a few pictures inside of the decoration. We then found the Museo Casa de Uriburu which was basically a museum with artificers from the 19th and 20th centuries from typical homes in the area. It was okay but nothing special. Our next stop however was pretty special.

In the centre of town is the main plaza which is basically a square with bars, restaurants and a museum called the Museo de Alta Montana. This museum houses the remains of three mummified Inca children which were discovered at the top of a mountain in the area over a decade ago. The three children had all been sacrificed by the Inca people to the gods and their remains had incredibly remained intact due to the cold conditions. It was considered a huge honour for the children to be sacrificed and they were fed a strong alcohol to sedate them before they were buried alive alongside other gifts to the gods. They rotate the children on display to preserve them for future and we saw the lightning girl. It was quite remarkable how much of the remains were still there and you could easily make out the expressions in her face and all of her hair was still in place. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures but google the museum and I'm sure they will have pictures on the website.

After the museum visit, we headed to find some empanadas for dinner which proved to be quite difficult as it was siesta time. We eventually found a small cafe, where we ordered our empanadas and sat down next to an old Argentinean guy. He started speaking to us and we managed to have a conversation with him in a mix of Spanish, English and the tiniest bit of German. He was particularly delighted when he said he was a Boca fan and I whipped out my phone to show him pictures we had taken of the stadium. I think he actually stood up and showed everyone else in the cafe whilst shouting some tribute to Boca. He seemed like a really nice old fella!!!

That night we had a lovely pizza in the main square along with a bottle of red wine which we splashed out on for 57 pesos. Now that we are wine connoisseurs, we can say that the Malbec had an extremely deep flavour with a hint of fruit. However, that would be a lie and it tasted nice, just like the 10 pesos wine we have been getting from the supermarket. We then sat in the square for a bit as there was some kind of march going on involving parents and kids. When they came to a stop in the square, they started singing on a stage so we sat and listened for a while. We then headed back to the apartment and were both pretty exhausted after the long bus journey so called it an early night.

Today, we collected some laundry which we had put in yesterday and then decided to climb up to the top of Cerro San Bernado which is a hill which overlooks the city of Salta. We did have the choice of either walking or getting a cable car but as we are doing the Inca Trail fairly soon we thought we should get the practice in. We got to the top in about 45 minutes which wasn't too bad given the quite rocky path and the hot weather. I think it was quite a bit harder than we had both anticipated though!! However, it was worth it as the views from the top were pretty incredible especially as it was clear apart from a bit of haze from the sun.

This afternoon, we have booked out bus to the Bolivian border for Tuesday morning. This is a relatively short 7 hours but we then need to arch another couple of hour bus once across the border. We then returned to the hostel to discover the football scores (Get in Mr. Remy!!) and are having a pretty quiet night which involves some steak, rice and maybe a glass or two of some more wine.