Steak, wine, and waterfalls: Salta to Iguazu

Salta, a colonial city in Argentina’s northwest, was home for the next few days. San Pedro had been a tiring experience, with a noisy dorm, and excursions starting hours before dawn and going on into the night. Trying to keep some control over our budget, empanadas had been our primary source of (delicious) food. In Salta we crashed,  lazed, indulged in the biggest, most delicious steak of our lives in a buzzing neighbourhood restaurant, enjoyed cheap good wine and freshly cooked meals in the hostel kitchen and leafy patio garden, and plotted our logistics for the upcoming Brazilian leg of our trip which coincided with the high season over Easter. We failed to see or do a single touristy thing in the city, beyond the steak, but soaked up the bustling evening atmosphere when half the city seemed to be enjoying their daily promenade on our walks to and from the supermarket.

Suitably rejuvenated after a few days, it was time to move on. Another night bus awaited us, this time for a 16 hour journey to Posadas, which we boarded in the early afternoon. We settled in to our seats at the front of the top deck, and watched the suburbs give way to lush tropical farms and countryside. In the glow of the late evening sun parrots flashed green and red in front of us. As night fell, dinner was served, with cold meats, cheeses, and bread making a change from the Peruvian chicken and rice bus staple. But then….we were served a second course! It might even have been chicken and rice. Then we were offered some wine. As if on a night-time safari we sipped our Argentinian white, and watched as nightjars rose up from the road in front of us, a snake slithered across our path, and a furry bottom disappeared into the undergrowth. Once in Posadas the next morning we switched onto another bus for a further 5 hours to Iguazu. We were pretty tired on arrival in the heat and humidity at our Iguazu hostel, but went for a wander to the tri-border viewpoint over the Iguazu river, looking across to Brazil and Paraguay.

The next morning we were up early, to be at the Iguazu park entrance when it opened at 8am. It was a beautiful day, and in the cool and quiet of the morning we virtually had the lower circuit of walkways among tropical trees to ourselves.

We saw toucans and vultures, rainbows, got our first soaking from the spray of the falls, and had a late breakfast picnic of bread, honey and kiwi fruit sitting here:

Then to the upper circuit, taking in more waterfall rainbows, before joining the throngs that had caught us up for the train to the Devil’s throat walkway.

Another picnic pit-stop for lunch, and then we headed out along the 1km trail over the river, spying turtles and catfish, and the rising plume of spray from the falls at the end. Standing above the immense cauldron of water falling beneath you was spectacular, and we got soaked to the skin time and again.

The next day we made a day trip to the Brazilian side, this time under a cooler, moodier, cloudy sky. We looked back at where we’d been the previous day, and got up close to the Devil’s throat falls from beneath them this time, with another drenching. We spotted flocks of swifts swirling in the rain and spray, before flying straight through the walls of water to their nests behind them. Then it was back to the hostel, to get ready to head to Brazil, for real this time, the next day.

San Pedro de Atacama to Salta

Despite being in the middle of the driest region on earth, we set off to explore some lakes before bidding San Pedro de Atacama farewell and heading onwards to Argentina. First, we explored the salt lakes that are vital habitat for flamingos. The lake was slowly evaporating, leaving behind encrusted salt, in the midst of a vast salt plain.

Then it was onwards to the Altiplanic lakes at 4500m, vivid blue water reflecting the fiercely clear sky, ringed with tough green grass and small herds of vicunas.

The next day we packed up and set our sights on Argentina, boarding a bus to take us up and out of the desert, over the Andes, and down the other side to Salta, a colonial city in the northwest of the country. We drove up high enough to pop our bags of crisps, past volcanic peaks, including one marking the border with Bolivia, a tantalising glimpse of a destination for next time. We passed lakes ringed with bright white salt, strange rock forms emerging from the desert, spotted vicunas, and somewhere up in the mountains we crossed the border into Argentina.

Then the descent, by which time we were on the verge of dozing off, but our eyes pinged open when we realised we were in the middle of a brilliant white salt plain stretching into the distance.

Sometime later we entered a dense bank of cloud, and then started making our way down a series of hairpins. As we emerged from beneath the cloud giant cactuses dotted the canyon-like hillside, which gave way to a valley of pink, red, and purple striped hillsides. We had entered the UNESCO World Heritage valley of Quebrada de Humahuaca. As night fell rain started pouring, a welcome relief from the dryness of the desert. We drove onwards for a couple more hours, this time through urban and agricultural lowlands, streetlights and car lights illuminating the raindrops on the windows, and making the earlier succession of natural wonders seem impossible.