salta
I have always been fond of Argentina so it was quite exciting to get there. Our tour guide managed to get my passport stamped but somehow forgot two others. Or was it the customs bloke? They were UK passports afterall! That created a bit of a headache for them.
So onto Salta. For two nights. Camping again in a site that was obviously built and possibly very popular in the 1920´s. Argentina´s hay day. Art Decor and all. A huge, unfilled swimming pool. Salta was billed as the activity stop of our tour. There isn´t much else to the place. There I did a little paragliding. Rather good but not as scary as I wanted. Some canopy. This involves attaching yourself to a metal wire that is stretched at a slight gradient over a ravine and sliding across. There were eight of these and some as long at 500m. Quite scary. Typically I got stuck some 150m from the end of that one and had to pull myself the remainder of the way while trying not to look down. If I fell, I would certainly die! Then I did some grade III rafting which was exciting at times but Grade I and Grade II must be really crap. I was quite proud of myself not to have fallen out until our damn instructor decided to capsize the raft for a laugh. Oh, and there were two random dogs running along the bank of the river throughout. In fairness, these activities were thoroughly enjoyable and cost a fraction of what they would have cost in Europe.
I enjoyed Salta but if truth be none, I am not enjoying so much my traveling company. It seems I am the only one up for a beer. Everyone seems to go to bed so early. I find some of them really boring too. I couldn´t even be bothered with the mind numbing small talk. Maybe it´s the camping, maybe it´s the getting up at 6am most mornings, maybe it´s the duties (cooking, cleaning, washing, putting up tents, packing them away). Or the gruesome schedule, or our crap tour guide, or the long bus journeys. It´s meant to be a holiday. But I will stick it out. Afterall it cost me enough and of course, there is Machu Picchu to look forward to.
Up at 5am for the next leg of the journey.
So onto Salta. For two nights. Camping again in a site that was obviously built and possibly very popular in the 1920´s. Argentina´s hay day. Art Decor and all. A huge, unfilled swimming pool. Salta was billed as the activity stop of our tour. There isn´t much else to the place. There I did a little paragliding. Rather good but not as scary as I wanted. Some canopy. This involves attaching yourself to a metal wire that is stretched at a slight gradient over a ravine and sliding across. There were eight of these and some as long at 500m. Quite scary. Typically I got stuck some 150m from the end of that one and had to pull myself the remainder of the way while trying not to look down. If I fell, I would certainly die! Then I did some grade III rafting which was exciting at times but Grade I and Grade II must be really crap. I was quite proud of myself not to have fallen out until our damn instructor decided to capsize the raft for a laugh. Oh, and there were two random dogs running along the bank of the river throughout. In fairness, these activities were thoroughly enjoyable and cost a fraction of what they would have cost in Europe.
I enjoyed Salta but if truth be none, I am not enjoying so much my traveling company. It seems I am the only one up for a beer. Everyone seems to go to bed so early. I find some of them really boring too. I couldn´t even be bothered with the mind numbing small talk. Maybe it´s the camping, maybe it´s the getting up at 6am most mornings, maybe it´s the duties (cooking, cleaning, washing, putting up tents, packing them away). Or the gruesome schedule, or our crap tour guide, or the long bus journeys. It´s meant to be a holiday. But I will stick it out. Afterall it cost me enough and of course, there is Machu Picchu to look forward to.
Up at 5am for the next leg of the journey.
posted by Ciarán at 2:33 p.m.
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