Argentina 6

We lashed out on a taxi from the Salta bus station and it cost us a whole pound to get to the hotel.   I’ve noticed references to flashpacking, which I guess is travelling around but staying in smarter hotels rather than hostels.  We don’t carry our backpacks a great deal so I’ve decided that we’re slackpacking.

At the hotel we met an Argentinian woman who spoke excellent English and was a talker so we heard a lot of stories about a whole variety of things.  She grew up in Rosario (which apparently is wonderful), where she did Highland Dancing as a girl being allowed to wear only Fighting Stewart tartan for her kilt.  The Brits did a lot of work here in Argentina setting up railways, the post system and various other industries and Rosario still has a football club called Newalls Old Boys which just had to become my Argentinian team to support.

Salta is an attractive place with a good atmosphere and a relatively compact centre but it’s now the second day without sunshine, which is the longest we’ve had none since we arrived nearly a month ago.  There seems to be a much larger population with local Indian blood than elsewhere in Argentina where features are generally very European with just variations in skin colour.  We’re in old Inca country here and fairly close to Bolivia.  What is noticeable is that the European element is much, much more commonly seen sitting at the outdoor cafes than the indigenous looking lot.   Heather had her sandals shone while we were at a café this morning.

Some years ago in Texas, Heather was offered Chili as a vegetarian meal because the waitress didn’t seem to believe that ground beef counted as meat.  Well we’ve beaten that in Salta.   Just about to order pasta last night with, we were assured, a vegetarian filling when I decided to look up the one word we didn’t recognise.  It was brains !  The waiter insisted it wasn’t meat because it wasn’t flesh.  Now Heather isn’t a fundamentalist vegetarian and can separate the wheat from the char –grilled but this was just too much.  An alternative choice was made.  One of the frustrations we’ve had is that pretty well every restaurant has the same menu, pasta, pizza, steak, salad, some fish, with some minor variations.   I did mention the amount of ice cream eaten here in a previous note but in Salta you can even phone in an order and get your ice cream delivered.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the driving here, and now we’ve had three cars and covered quite a lot of kilometres I’ll mention a couple of differences from the UK.   Drivers are usually fine, drive very close to the car in front but will stop to let pedestrians across the road.  Generally you’re not supposed to turn left across the traffic in towns, so you have to go past the road you want and then turn right, right and right, letting you drive straight across the road you’d started on into the one you want.  Virtually all towns and cities are on a grid pattern with adjacent roads being one way in different directions so it’s not difficult once you’ve realised what to do.  There are generally no stop lines at junctions and theoretically you give way to traffic coming from the right, although this is difficult to believe when you see it in practice.  Out of town, there are many kilometres of double, no overtaking lines in the wide open, fantastically good visibility countryside and they are treated just like the ‘serving suggestion’ on a pack of food.  Everyone considers them ridiculous and takes no notice.   We have seen several beautiful old cars here used for weddings.  Two tone paintwork, 1930’s, usually convertibles and all right hand drive, even the old American ones.  It turns out that Argentinians used to drive on the left back in the old days – perhaps another old British legacy.   In fact we’ve seen so many weddings we think it might run football close as the national sport.

The biggest difficulty we’ve had is getting money.  Fewer places take credit cards than we expected so our cash and debit cards have been taking some bashing.   The real problem is that cash itself, notes and particularly coins are in short supply.  I understand this is because inflation requires more notes to be used to buy stuff and the government won’t print any more.  Coins are just few and far between but most local bus companies will only take coins.  They then don’t pay them into the banks but sell them on the black market at a profit.   Cash machines regularly have queues of 30 or 40 people waiting their turn and sometimes just run out of notes so we’ve learnt to request odd amounts like 980 Pesos rather than 1000 because that way you do get some notes smaller than 100’s.   By the way it’s about 6 Pesos to £1.

I’m writing this on Sunday evening sitting by the hotel pool with an overcast sky above me.  Tiles underfoot have been heating up all day in the sun and so are pleasantly warming my bare feet as I type.  However, rain is forecast for later so I bet you feel really sorry for us.

Last night being Saturday was when everything was happening around the main square, the snappily titled “9th of July Plaza”.  A lovely square containing a fine variety of trees and actual grass rather than dust, with a pink Cathedral in one corner.  Last night, another corner where the restaurant we’d chosen was situated seemed to be hosting the outdoor, highly amplified, “Salta’s Got Talent” competition, although as Wayne Rooney might put it, the title could be considered a terminological inexactitude.   So instead of choosing an outdoor table we went inside to find a five piece rock band tuning up, not 30 yards from Salta’s Got Talent.  Once they started we walked out and did choose an outdoor table.   The entertainment was augmented by wedding cars circling the square tootling their horns with vigour. 

Eating outdoors in Salta is the worst we’ve had for hawkers trying to sell things, as if for instance, you’re eating your dinner and suddenly felt an irresistible urge to buy five pairs of nylon socks or some face flannels.  Bracelets and religious pictures are also hot items.  Shoe shiners hunt in packs.  Disturbingly, many of the sellers are children from about 6 upwards who ask for any spare food left on the table; a slice of left pizza or half a cake for instance.  We gave one lad some cake and he carefully used a fork to get it onto a paper napkin, wrapped it up for his pocket and carried on to try selling at other tables.  

We’ve been here longer than anywhere and will move on tomorrow, catching the 15.00 coach to Corrientes, arrival 04.30 Tuesday morning.