Northwest Argentina

Again, it's been a really long time since i've written so I'll try to do my best to remember the good stuff! From bariloche we got on a bus and headed north to Mendoza and then got on another bus to head all the way north to Salta. Salta is a really nice city, with some nice parks and churches.. Northwest Argentina has a different feel from the rest of the country.. More cultural which I really like! It feels far less European and more exciting. On Friday night we went out to check out the town and there was a huge crowd gathered in the square so we got closer to see if we could see what was going on. We figured out too late that it was some mass religious ceremony and they all started marching and chanting and we were stuck in the middle of all this. Finally we got out and headed to check out some of the other busy streets with lots of shops and bars. From salta we did amday trip north to some really neat little indigenous villages called purmamarca and humhuaca. There were some cool markets and really cute little houses. We also visited some inca ruins at tilcara that had been partially rebuilt so you could see what the houses would have been like. The altitude gets much higher here so we had our first coca leaves to help with the effects. The next day we did a day trip to cafayate through these beautiful red canyons. We went to some wineries and saw the last celebrations of carnival in cafayate.. Wishing that we had brought our drivers licenses so that we could have rented a car and done these trips on our own. One night we got a bunch of people from
Our hostel together and had a big barbecue... I don't think I've ever seen so much meat in one place at one time. We asked for some steaks at the supermarket and ended up with what appeared to be the whole side of a cow, topped it off with a shopping cart full of beer and it was a good night! From here Sarah and I part ways.. She is heading back to buenos aires and I am heading to Bolivia with some people from Switzerland and Germany!