South America Part II: Salta and Buenos Aires

I'm going to start post 2 as promised, with an account of my 18 hour bus trip from Mendoza to Salta. I believe I said it was 16 in the last post, but no, it was actually 18.

It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, although I was itching to get off the bus in the last few hours.  The buses here have a number of different classes similar to on airplanes. Everything from your standard bus seat, to (what is essentially) first class. Obviously I wasn't prepared to spend 18 hours crammed into a standard bus seat, so I booked a first class ticket. The most expensive class I could get. It was $150. 

The first class experience on the bus was pretty funny - they are trying to be sophisticated like on the airplane, but everything was just not quite right.  Upon boarding, we were given square cards with numbers on them. The 'bus attendant' (is that what you call a flight attendant equivalent on a bus?) then started calling numbers over the intercom system, and I realised we were playing BINGO. As previously mentioned, my Spanish is not the greatest, so I played along as best as I could, but I get a bit lost with my numbers after 60. Eventually someone won - I'm not sure what the prize was. Something average I'm sure.

A movie was then put on the tvs. Annoyingly, the sound came out of the speakers in the bus, so you had to listen unless you put your own headphones and music in. The first film was something called Navy Seals vs Zombies, and was easily the worst movie I've ever seen. I sure hope it was one of those films that was deliberately made to be cheesy, because otherwise those actors need to find new jobs immediately.   Dinner was served with the zombie movie, as you do. Beef, potatoes, salad, stale bread. Below average.  I had brought snacks thankfully, so I had enough to eat. We were served a generous amount of wine and champagne at least, so that was ok. 

After dinner we got another treat of a movie. Adam Sandler and Kevin James in "Pixels". If you haven't seen it....don't. I retract my previous statement about the zombie movie - this was easily the worst movie I've ever seen. The rights to play good movies must just be too expensive for the bus company, so they are stuck with this garbage (you are getting a travel blog, and movie review blog in one today!)

My first class seat did recline flat, so I managed to sleep nearly 10 hours, which helped cut the travel time. I was rudely awoken by the bus attendant to serve me breakfast. Which was tea and cookies. I had brought some nice croissants so ate those instead, but would have preferred not to have been woken up for cookies. 

Anyway, we got to Salta (northern Argentina) around midday, and I survived. Overall it was an interesting experience - glad I did it once. But will be flying from now on. 

Salta is close to the Bolivian and Chilean borders. I've always wanted to go to the salt flats in Bolivia, but I just won't have time on this trip. So Salta was a good compromise as the scenery is similar.  

I was extremely antsy the day I arrived (after the bus) so I went for a "walk" up to the local look up to stretch the legs, and ended up pretty much running up (despite the fact that I was just wearing converses). It was actually a decent workout in the 35 degree heat and the views from the top were nice. There was a dodgy cable car as well, so I was able to take that down.

I met some people at the hostel and went to a local steak house for dinner. The kind that all the locals were at and no tourists. Turned out to be one the best steaks I've ever had! We also shared a few litres of Malbec (it was sold by the litre in a metal jug at this restaurant), which I paid the price for Friday.

The main draw in salta is the sites outside of the city. There is absolutely spectacular scenery - desert, salt flats, multicoloured mountains, crazy roads through the clouds, etc. So on Friday I went on a full day excursion to see it all. I actually wasn't that hungover, but the 6am wake up call was rude. Especially since no one eats dinner here until after 10pm so you aren't getting to bed until after 1am on an early night.

The trip was pretty spectacular - I won't attempt to describe the sites as I'll post photos when I'm home. But it was breathtaking.  The salt flats were the highlight for me. Not as cool as the ones in Bolivia I don't think, and it's coming into the dry season, so we didn't get the thin layer of water reflecting the sun, but they were still awesome. The tour I did was very well organised and there was lots of food, cultural stops, photo ops and even a roadside wine and cheese stop. Most of the trip was at elevation, with the highest point being 4,200 meters. I forgot how easy it is to get short of breath at that elevation! 

Although it was stunning and worth doing, it was a bloody long day. We ended up getting caught in a crazy thunderstorm on the way back and were delayed just outside of Salta. After the 18 hours on the bus the previous day I was ready to jump out the window and walk (but I didn't). 

I always love judging the people on day tours.  It's always a 75/25 normal to weird ratio. I mean, we are all a little weird, but 25% are like weird weird. Like the guy who had a mullet but with 4 'rats tails' of dreadlocked hair to his waste. He also chain smoked the whole day. He was disgusting. Also funny was the older Swedish woman who turned up in an ill fitting summer dress and flip flops, despite the fact that the instructions clearly said "we will be walking so bring good shoes, and we will be at elevation so it will get cold." She had to buy one of those tacky llama wool sweaters from an Inca woman to warm up. 

On Saturday I booked a whitewater rafting trip. After the never ending day on Friday I was seriously regretting it, as I did not want to get back in the car. But then it was rainy so I would have been bored sitting around Salta otherwise. Of course it was a lot of fun once I got there. The rapids were not huge but the scenery was spectacular and there was an excellent asado after (BBQ).

I'm currently in Buenos Aires. I flew down - no more bus.  I arrived on Sunday midday which is when the San Telmo markets are on. It's a big street market in one of the older areas of the city. I got the subway over (which is very good here) and wondered around for a bit. It was packed but there were lots of interesting stalls, music, street food, etc. Unfortunately though I had woken up Sunday feeling quite sick and it just got worse and worse as the day went on. Not sure if it's a stomach flu or something I ate, but I started feeling so sick I could barely stand. Ended up having to just get a taxi back to the hostel where I spent the rest of the day in bed. At least it was a Sunday and rainy, so would have been a quite evening anyway. 

This morning I thought I was feeling better, so I went to check out the Recoleta cemetery which is one of the more famous attractions here. Its a huge cemetery of the most elaborate mausoleums. It is also the resting place of a number of famous Argentinians including Evita (Eva Peron), former presidents, noble prize winners, etc. It was huge, but quite interesting. Some of the mausoleums and vaults were ridiculous. 

This afternoon I started feeling really sick again so I decided to go find a doctor to get some medicine of some sort. I don't want my whole time in Buenos Aires ruined and I'm not feeling any better. The guy at the hostel told me to try a public hospital - it's free apparently. I asked if they would speak English and he didn't know. He also mentioned a "private" hospital which I would need to pay for, but he thought would have English speakers. So I went over to the public hospital first and it was a nightmare. Hundreds of people/patients around, but no administrative staff, no info desks, no signage. Things were falling off the walls, the paint was peeling, the lighting was poor, etc. and it did not look very clean. I finally figured out where to go, but the guy at the desk did not speak English and had literally zero interest in helping. He took my name and told me to go to "area B." Area B was a decrepit room packed full of people and it was currently being painted (the painters were painting around everyone). I gave up pretty quickly as I didn't even know if I was in the right spot or if I would get an English speaking doctor and the queue looked to be about four hours long.

I was going to give up and hope the illness passes, but thought I would try the private clinic. It was like night and day - an english speaking, modern facility with comfortable seating and wifi access. And, although it costs money, it was dirt cheap. So that's where I am right now; waiting to see a doctor, writing my blog. Not exactly how I planned on spending my time in Buenos Aires, but at least I have 3 more full days. Fingers crossed the doctor speaks English. If not, at least there is wifi so I can google translate my symptoms.

The other thing I did today was visit a cueva to change some USD into pesos. I know, changing money is not exactly newsworthy, but getting money out is quite a hassle here. The cuevas are the black market (technically illegal) money traders (blue market is what it's called). Up until December there was a huge difference in the official exchange rate and the "blue rate" so as a tourist you would bring USD and change them at one of this places for a much better rate (like 15:1 vs the official rate of 9:1). This changed in December with the election of the new president who removed certain limits previously imposed on the currency. Now the official rate is the same as the blue rate - has made things a lot more expensive for tourists.  The reason I went though was that it costs me a small fortune to take money out at the ATMs and I get a shitty rate. The ATMs charge A$7.50 per transaction, and they only let you take out 2,000 pesos at a time (which is like $170). Add to that the service fees my bank charges and it costs over $10 to get $170 out. That's 6%. So I brought USD as I get a better rate this way. The cueva was funny - it was set up like an antique shop at the front as a disguise, but it was a very poor cover. They buzz you in to the shop and then into a small hall with tellers who change the money. 

Ok my number is about to be called her at the doctor. How exciting! Hopefully I'm better soon or else my next post will not be very exciting.

SH