The bus from Mendoza reached Salta with a huge delay just before the nightfall. What is more we did not win a Bingo – the raffle game organized in the bus for passangers.
In our humble opinion the biggest draw of colonial Salta is the MAAM = Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña. The museum features extremely well preserved trio of so called Lllullaillaco children mummies found at the altitude of 6700 masl. The Inkas believed the mountains to be sacred and near the summit of some mountains they sacrificed highborn children. During the ceremony the children were drugged and later buried to freeze.
In our humble opinion the biggest draw of colonial Salta is the MAAM = Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña. The museum features extremely well preserved trio of so called Lllullaillaco children mummies found at the altitude of 6700 masl. The Inkas believed the mountains to be sacred and near the summit of some mountains they sacrificed highborn children. During the ceremony the children were drugged and later buried to freeze.
The museum shows one of the mummies each six months in a special glass box, where the oxygen is kept low and temperature at −20 °C. Similar conditions to those at their original mountain residence. We admired “the Lightning girl” – a sitting down mummy of six year old girl. And why “the Lightning girl”? At some point after her burial she was hit by a lightning! The mummy is quite scary, it is disturbingly well preserved. It looks like it could open its eyes at any moment and chase us from the museum. 🙂
We went for an Argentine steak dinner at the main square the first evening – Salta is much cheaper than the rest of Argentina.
The second day we rented a car for a trip to Cafayate. The countryside by the road 68 towards Cafayate are one of the best near Salta, especially in the valley of Quebrada de Cafayate.
Driving in Argentina is lively, but Viktor enjoyed it very much. The road laws are viewed more as recommendations. 🙂 We had time to do a few scenic walks in the Quebrada de Cafayate reserve, for example the Garganta del Diablo chasm. We ended the trip in the Bodega Las Nubes with amazing view and a quick wine tasting in El Esteco vineyard. Then we had to hurry back to Salta to return the rental.
Why is Cafayate so charming?
In Cafayate and nearby a top white wine torrontés is produced. According to the explanation at Las Nubes wine tasting clouds cannot pass the hills of Quebrada, therefore the climate in Cafayate is dry and sunny – perfect for growing grapes.
Returning to Salta we were short of time and Viktor was driving like a “proper Argentine” to get on time to the rental place. We arrived on time, but the rental office was closed. We engaged the help of a travel agency located near the parking lot, where we picked up the car in the morning. They called the owner, but it was difficult to talk to him. He claimed we arrived late, that he is at home far far away, even though it was only 10 minutes after the agreed rental return time. He refused for us to drive the car to him and he was speaking a lot of bollocks. At the end he asked for 500 ARS (at first he wanted 30 USD) and for us to leave the car in the parking lot near the travel agency. Unfortunately we had no choice but to agree since we were leaving early next morning. However, we did not have enough cash for this bribe and people in the travel agency did not want to wait until we get money from an ATM. It was 9 pm already. So we ended up leaving keys in the travel agency office and an envelope with money at a pub nearby…
The whole conversation was in Spanish it was no use to try and speak English. Generally Argentines speak poor English. Well we were feeling quite cross after this situation. He duped us.
But a beer and a steak on the main square helped calm us down at least a bit. 🙂
