Salta

On Wednesday morning, we said goodbye to Cafayate and drove 189 twisty kilometers back to Salta, where we started this little side trip. I stopped along the way a couple of times to take a few pictures of the magnificent scenery, although there were far fewer lookouts on the northbound side of the highway than on the southbound.

Salta is the fifth largest city in Argentina and one of the oldest, having been founded in 1582. There's some beautiful, very European architecture and some grand statues here, but overall, the city isn't one we'll be racing back to anytime soon.

Once we settled into our accommodations and returned the rental car, we went for lunch at Tantra Salta, a fully vegan restaurant. The place was lovely, the service was excellent and the food looked beautiful. Sadly, only the cauliflower wings were delicious while the other two dishes were a lame attempt at reproducing meat and fish using tofu.

After I took a rather lengthy afternoon nap, we did a ninety minute walking tour of the old city, which was informative and interesting, but most importantly, pointed out where to eat the best empanadas in Argentina.

Of course, Brenda and I were not about to take our guide at his word, so we went to La Tacita, a tiny mom and pop shop, and ordered three empanadas con queso and a 500 ml can of Salta Negra beer. I don't know if they're truly the best in Argentina, but they are surely the best empanadas I've eaten. They're made fresh to order with an impossibly thin pastry shell generously filled with cheese, a touch of onion and egg, and baked in a wood oven.

One of the must do things here is to go to the top of El Cerro San Bernardo, either on foot, by funicular or by car. Most smart people take the funicular or a taxi to the top and walk the 1021 stairs down to the city. Well, no one ever accused me of being a genius, so we did it in reverse. Salta is already at an elevation of 1187 meters and the peak of the hill is at 1472 meters, so by the time we got to the top, I was sucking air and was ready for a shower. The view from the top gave a good clear view of Salta, but overall, it was nothing to write home about.

At the summit is a statue of San Bernardo who managed to be so saintly that both this mountain in Salta AND a breed of dog bear his name.

We took the funicular down and headed back to the apartment so I could put on a dry shirt.

We lunched at Cardamomo, a vegetarian restaurant where I had lasagna, and Brenda had risotto, both of which were different from what we expected but were absolutely delicious. We washed it all down with a small production Torrontes from Bodega Isasmendi, maybe the best example we've had here.

When dinner rolled around, neither of us was particularly hungry, so we decided to return to La Tacita, this time for six empanadas and a liter of Salta Rubia beer. At one point, we were joined by a friendly little grasshopper, but we refused to share.

Today, our flight back to BA didn't leave until 7:55 PM, so we had a lot of time to kill after our 10:00 AM checkout. Fortunately, we were able to leave our bags with our host while we went on with our day.

Brenda needed to replace some shoes, so a good portion of the morning was spent with her trying on sneakers and successfully finding a pair.

After all that shopping, we'd built up quite a hunger, so we went back to La Tacita for a farewell visit, a dozen empanadas, and a liter of Salta Rubia.
We couldn't resist. Besides, we couldn't get enough of the view of the Franciscan Cathedral across the street.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring two museums: The Colonial History Museum (m'eh) and The High Mountain Archeological Museum, which was amazing. It's full of Incan artifacts from burial sites of sacrificed children found at almost 7000 meters altitude atop an extinct volcano. The air is so thin, the air so dry, and the temperatures are so cold that perfect conditions occurred for mummification.

The museum has three mummified child sacrifices, only one of which is on display at a time. The state of preservation of the mummy we saw is incredible with clothing still all intact, and even the eyelashes and hair braids remain. Unfortunately, to maintain the preservation of the mummies and artifacts, no photos are allowed, but I managed to find a few online that I'm attaching to this blog.

That's our two and a half days in Salta in a nutshell. It's a nice place to visit.....once.Read more