Hey everyone, after reluctantly leaving Buenos Aires and getting on the 22hour bus to Salta we finally arrived, the hostel we picked was perfect, it is clearly someones house who let people stay, use the internet for free and let you watch cable tv all day! They also provide breakfast but unlike other hostels there is no time limit and you get in whatever tume you wake up. Plus the beds are the comfiest we have stayed in this whole trup. Needless to say we stayed here 5 nights!

Salta is a lovely city and way bigger than we originally thought it was going to be. It has a nice park area and the town is big and like everywhere in Argentina has a main square where everything seems to be happening. Inbetween sleeping and taking advantage of free cable we did actually decided to venture out. THe town is nice with some cool buildings in and around the shops, the ,main aquare is full of trees and sitting areas with bars, restaurants and churches around the edges.

We had decided to go back into Chile to get into Bolivia but a couple in our hostel pointed out that getting there from the very north of argentina is way cheaper, plus the salt flat tour is better and cheaper from south Bolivia than Chile. The bus to Chile was 197pesos and the one we have took is only 57! and the tour from Chile is 40percent more expensive, This saving made we headed into town to meet with a friend from Cairns from new year who was heading in the opposite direction, it was cool meeting up and having a couple of drinks and talking about South America, we both dead excited about Bolivia and especially Peru now.

Our final day before heading into Bolivia was to take the cable car up the mountain to check out the views from the top. We all thought it was going to get to the top and be a huge open space where you look out over the city. We were surprised to find there was a huge walking area with waterfalls, ´gardens´ amongst over stuff. The views were brilliant and after the weather the 1st few days been pretty shocking we definately picked the right day, it was so clear and we could see the whole town, the mountains and about 6 different football pitches.

Hope all is well and dont worry about the whole swine flu stuff were both perfectly fine. See you all pretty soon now! Rich and Hannah