Wonderful Salta! We loved it here! It feels very different to the rest of Argentina, perhaps as its nearer the Bolivian border, but its much less western and more ´community like´ even though it's a fair sized town, plus we felt safe, met some great people, did some good tours and finally both felt well enough to enjoy 3 meals a day and a long overdue night out partying!

When we first arrived we headed out to get a feel for the place and at the main square ran into a huge religious celebration. This beautiful pink church was the main stage for hundreds of young children singing, dancing and carrying Christ statues. In fact every small town we passed through on the tours in the subsequent days had processions and road blocks for the celebrations. We headed to a café, picked out a favourite wine and watched the Salta procession in full flow. It was the sweetest thing you have ever seen, all these cute little pre-school children dressed up and singing. After this we nipped inside the "mummy museum" where we learnt a little about the Incas and saw an actual Inca child sacrificed mummy preserved from the cold climates of the surrounding mountains.

The second day we rose early to take our trip to Cafayte which we had eagerly been recruited into by Lior our newly found Israely friend the previous day. With our 2 cars and drivers hired us, together with Lior, 2 German girls, and 1 German guy headed to the valley. Our group was quickly named the "United Nations" by Sven, as between us we have lived in several countries and could speak several languages. Although Lior was amazed that I could only speak one language (he obviously hadn't met very many English people!). But this trip is a bit of an eye opener as to how many people can speak at least 2 and more languages… makes you feel a bit silly for only knowing one.

The trip to Cafayte was fantastic the mountains were full of colours (not surprising as Salta is home to the7 coloured hills) and the landscape change dramatically along the way to become much more arid and desert like. After many a stop for photos (hence the abundance of them! Which by the way do not do the views justice!) we arrived for more wine tasting and a meat feast of a lunch. We drove back on tender hooks due to our absolutely insane driver who thought it was a game to scare the tourists as we hurtled around non barrier corners on a mountain face, with only the background noise of our unhappy cursing to keep us company. We were promised English speaking drivers which ours wasn't and to top it off he told us that he didn't speak English, didn't want to speak it and thought it was a horrible language. It later emerged his hatred for all things English (and therefore just Nikki) stemmed from the Falklands. This was the only person we have come across after being warned many hold a grudge.

On our arrival home we toasted our survival with a drink and shortly headed out to experience the Salta nightlife. It was really bizarre; everyone wanted to talk to us! Men were walking past Sven and toasting him by clinking his glass, when we separated we were accosted by men and women alike with cries of "your beautiful". After numerous bum pinching and a rather fruitful encounter for Sven we left happy and hungry. One amazing hot dog later we were nicely tucked up in bed just as the sun rose and consequently spent the next day relaxing and doing absolutely nothing. Bliss.

Whilst in Salta the Towers held a Pancake making evening and taught the "United Nations" the art of a good pancake, including the toss and flip technique. After a few wall splats flips we were in action and everyone tasted the delights of a traditional lemon and sugar English pancake but with screwed up faces quickly moved onto the hard stuff - dulce de leche!

With the United Nations departed we thought we would opt for something a bit different and dabble in some kite buggying fun! And fun we had only not kite buggying but trying to find some wind worthy of pulling a buggy in a place where it is "always windy". Our luck was up and our guide had to think quickly. He decided to take us off roading to a spot where only his friends go and explore. We bumped and bounced down a dried up river bed riding freestyle on the top of the jeep to see some amazing geographical sights and sampled a bit of rock climbing to watch the sunset.

Although we were disappointed there was no buggying and we were treated to some amazing sights, namely seeing some wild condors fly unusually close to us and the route to A Cachi was spectacular, especially the cactus national park!

All geology-ed out we returned 12 hours later exhausted but had to stay awake for our 2am bus to Chile, with no bed we headed to town for a strong coffee and hot chocolate. At 2am we boarded our bus to cross the Andes for the border crossings (4400 meters above sea level!) to reach San Pedro de Atacama.