Another overnight bus journey, another city. I was meeting another friend in Salta who happened to be travelling around South America also but I hadn't Antonia in years so was looking forward to her arrival in the evening.

We were staying in the downtown area (again), which was a bit more chaotic and South American but still had a nicer feel to it than Cordoba. The plaza mayor was the classical colonial town square I had seen many times already but within the first couple of hours, I started to get a good feeling about being here. Further uptown is where all the restaurants and bars were for the evening activities, so after a decent lunch I decided to head that way to see what it was like and scout out restaurants to visit in the evening. This area was much nicer and calmer and had a very relaxed vibe to it not dissimilar to parts of Palermo in BA. I settled for a café on the corner to have an afternoon coffee in the sun and spend a couple of hours just passing the time. After Cordoba, I was feeling more at ease with where I was and the people were also a lot friendlier (as you would expect in smaller towns) but you could also see the change in their appearance. The north west of Argentina has a more indigenous population and Salta is where you begin to notice this difference on your journey northwards.

In the few days spent in Salta we climbed Cerro San Bernando which seemed to be a very popular day out with locals who were either exercising, enjoying a family day out or a romantic afternoon. It was a relatively easy walk up to the top but did offer very nice views over the city. A bit of culture took us to visit the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology (MAAM) which had as its star attraction, some mummified children that were sacrificed to the gods by their indigenous fathers at the time. It wasn't deemed to be killing them, rather them being specially chosen for this great honour. Still, it was sad to see these children dressed in their clothes and with their possessions being sent to sleep by drinking a local alcoholic mixture and then buried alive. The extreme cold temperatures in the mountains is what caused them to be mummified. Interesting but not exactly pleasant!

We also ate very well in Salta as for a relatively small town it had an impressive range of eateries that were not only good but had a bit of diversity (and inexpensive!). Antonia is vegetarian and she was especially happy, as she had struggled for the last month or two.

Many tours to the surrounding countryside are also offered from Salta and we embarked on a couple of them. The highlight of these is experiencing the spectacular mountain ranges with their impressive formations and colour schemes. The countryside is also very much covered by cacti and you start to think that you are exploring the wild west of the US. The first tour ended in a small village called Cachi were you stop for lunch before returning to Salta but one of the funniest things about this tour was our guide. Argentinian with Sicilian roots, after telling him that I was Greek (this was the persona I adopted in Argentina!) he told me he had many friends in Salta of Greek origin and he really liked Greek music. My Greek friends will appreciate the humour of this story a bit more, but the only words he said he knew in Greek were soma mou which means 'my body'. A bit odd at first as its not the most obvious of first words to learn in Greek but then it all became clear when he started playing some Greek music from his mobile phone. On came 'soma mou' by a famous Greek singer Notis Sfakianakis. I couldn't contain my laughter.

There is a also a very popular train excursion we had wanted to go on (tren de las nubes or 'train to the clouds') but as this only ran once a week, we only managed to go on a similar tour by road. Another character of a tour guide drove us through the country side further north of Salta. This time he was a more elderly gentleman called Willam Smith(!). Turns out his parents were British but he was born in Argentina. The tour took us even deeper into Argentina's 'wild west'. It was a very long tour and the altitude made us sleepy at times but the scenery again was impressive. Argentina really has it all when it comes to landscapes.

After lunch in a small town that was another example of how I pictured South America to be before I came, we set out on a long bumpy road for about 2 hours. The road was bad enough but our guide at one point went off the road and we almost had an accident. Luckily nothing happened but my friend and I looked at each and thought WTF!? We think he closed his eyes for just a moment but he brushed it off as if nothing happened. Eventually we hit the paved road and made our way to the Salinas Grandes. These were huge salt plains where local co-operatives harvested the salt for not a lot of money but tourists still come here to take their 'loco' pictures as the landscape distorts perspective. This is what Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is famous for and I would be heading there soon. So although it was good to see all this, it was like a warm up to the main event. Instead of returning to Salta we got dropped off in a small town called Purmamarca as we would be heading this way anyway on our way to Bolivia.

It was a good few days here for many reasons but I mainly felt reinvigorated about continuing on towards the final leg of my SudAmerican escapade.