The city of Salta is way up north and practically on the border of Bolivia. It definately has that Bolivia feel. Upon our arrival to Salta, after a 20 hour bus ride, we stretched our legs and were bombarded, in a nice way not the Ecua way, by hostal representatives from all over the city. Unknowingly, we chose the party hostal. Little did we know we´d be convinced, obligated and kindly dragged to the Salta party scene every night. We´ve never been to a hostal where there´s actually an entertainment coordinator.
Our party connection, Diego, cooked barbecues, took us dancing (us and 15 other hostal-ers he convinced), organized a visit to a peña (a dinner-music show), provided lots of wine and funny tourist stories. He was Mr.Fun. Which was great, except he made us feel like old ladies - a little peace and quiet anyone? :)The Arg. party scene is a little bizarre. It starts at 2am, yes, 2am. Clubs and bars open at 1am-ish and are hopping at 2am until 6am. We weren´t and aren´t used to this type of partying! Doesn´t anyone want a decent night´s sleep? :)
Being dragged to the party was fun of course, but coincidentally made the next day start about 6 hours later than usual.
Salta is a beautiful city. All the places we´ve visited in Argentina have been beautiful with lots of trees and a small town feel, even in bigger cities. We visited the food market, which finally felt like the market we know and love. Dirty, smelly, raw, loud, cheap, perfect! We also visited the handicraft market and our eyes glazed over from the heat and poncho overload. Can you really consider anything wool when you are standing still and sweating? Lastly, we went to another handicraft fair which felt more like the Scituate Art Festival than the Juan Leon Mera Market. Here there were few wool ponchos and lots of jewelry... now we´re talking!
Of course, lets talk about the Argentinian barbecue. We could relate it to a Mayer Seafood Pigout, but with meat. We´re not talking hamburgers and hot dogs... no, no, no... we´re talking chorizo, blood sausage (just close your eyes and chew, it´s not so bad I swear!), tripe (intestines, see blood sausage instructions, but chew longer), steak, ribs and a million other cuts of meat that I have no idea what they mean but are common parts of Arg. conversation. The serving tray never seemed to empty nor did our glasses of wine. It was one of the most delicious nights of my life. We chatted it up with some Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) from the neighborhood of "Flowers." They cutely explained that it´s right next to the neighborhood "Little Horse." We chuckled at how ridiculous it sounded in English. We also chatted with some funny Germans who explained that their town in Germany is known for being the most organized and for putting "lay" on the end of words to make things nice and little. Their example to us "sausage-lay," simply meaning "a little, cute sausage." Thank you for that fine example.
After the BBQ... of course, we went dancing.
The last highlight of our Salta stop was the peña. Maybe you remember peñas from Peru? We went to an amazing music and dance show in Lima, Peru and wrote about it in the blog. Here it was different dancing and music, but just as great. It consisted of 
live music and traditional Arg. dances. We were wowed by stomping, dancing Arg. cowboys and twirling girls with frilly skirts. We ate llama empanadas, rocked out folklore style and received a free bottle of wine for my fake-birthday celebration. And of course, after... we went dancing.
We enjoyed our combo Bolivian-Arg city. We felt more at home than ever. We´re heading closer to the Bolivian border to check out some famous rock stuff. Chao!ps: the pictures in this blog are not ours, we were too hot to take pictures. They are borrowed from the internet. Thank you anomous picture taker!
this is the 1st time ive read yourblog in so long! tengo envidia!!!!!!!!!! everything sounds and looks amazing and encima you guys look so hot and glowy as always. LOVE you and miss you guys to pieces ... :o) - nikki
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