The finest steak in the World!

An angry sky
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Even though we had arrived in to Salta really early that morning we still had to be out of our hostel by 10am or stay another night....something that both Mel and us didn't really want! So still half asleep we packed and went down for breakfast, if I remember correctly a very unispiring stale bread and jam breakfast (at least we still had some olive bread!).

After checking out we all headed off into the city and what a beautiful city it was and so good to be back in civilisation! Callum and I headed off to find a hostel we had read about in our guide while our Aussie friends headed to a bigger hostel they knew of. We had arranged to meet that night at a Steak House that we had in our guide and we were all looking forward to a good feast and some fine steak!

I got to have a swing in the kids playground!

Our really quite nice double room
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Our hostel for the night was really nice and a very friendly couple who ran the place. All the rooms had their own bathroom, what luxury, an they were all decorated in a colonial style in keeping with the building itself. The best part was that it was just around the corner from the main square.

So once we had dropped off our stuff we went out and about to look round Salta and have some lunch. Callum had been reading in our guide about some Inca ruins and bodies of children that had been found not too far away from Salta in the Andean mountains, these were on display at the museum in the square so we went to have a look. The site where the bodies were found was a place called Llullaillaco high in the snow covered mountains (about 6,700 mts above sea level), so the bodies have been preserve as if they had been mummified. The most famous "La Doncella" a girl of about 15 years old is the only one on view in the museum along with all the artefacts that were found with the 3 children. It appears that the children were sacrifices to the Inca Gods and will have been left in a freezing cold cave on the mountain to die. Aparently the children were paraded around the local villages and fed special cerimonial food on a 12 month run up to their deaths. They were also given many weavings, jewellry, special clothing and hand crafted dolls and minitures to go with them to the Gods. On their final ascent to their cave they probably would have been drugged to make their passing a little easier, this has been dicovered through testing hair samples wich reveal traces of Coca and Chicha (wheat beer). The bodies of "La Doncella" is amazing to see and doesn't look real because it is so well preserved. The artifact that are on show are also amazing, tiny little gold Llamas and dolls perfect in every detail of clothing, still not a very nice way to go!!.....

A fun trip up the mountain overlooking Salta
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After this we found a really nice cafe on the square and we ordered a very special lunch...........salad!! Yes, we really did crave salad as it had been missing from our diet since we left home, funny what you miss!!

Later that day we went to book our epic bus journey to Iguazu, we had been expecting a long journey but were stunned to find out that it would take 28 hours, oh well! Just next to the bus station was the gondala up to a park and lookout point, it looked fun so we decided to go. The views from the top were great and I got to have a swing in the kids playground (my highlight!!). It just seemed really strange to be back in a big city after so long.

The ancient machinery
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That evening we met up with Dave, Timmy, Shep and Mel and went for a fab meal at a huge restaurant packed full of locals and tourists all enjoying STEAK!! Oh and you also got a glass of really nice champage free with your meal....could it get any better. Well as you can see from the photo the steaks were the size of bricks and everyone enjoyed their first steak in Argentina. After that we headed off for some more drinks around town and then Callum and I chipped off as we had a really early start (5am) for our bus journey.

All aboard!!
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Next instalement..our journey across Argentina!