Salta, Argentina

We arrived in Salta several hours late. Our bus trip of 17 hours was worth it though… Salta is wonderful. Bob said that it’s his most favorite city of all in Argentina! I agree.

We got a taxi to our hotel. After a shower, a Salta cerveza and 2 carne empanadas, we were energized to go out and explore the city. We had heard about their famous Pena Restaurants--- a dining/cultural experience, so we found one and made reservations for that evening. As we were walking, we came upon an outdoor market in a park. Bob found a great leather belt to buy.

Dining in Argentina begins around 10pm. Usually; we’ll eat early in the afternoon before the all the restaurants close for siesta. Later in the evening, we’ll have a snack as we’re not late night eaters, but we decided to make an exception for a night out in Salta to experience a cultural event. We picked La Panaderia Del Chuna for our El Folclore… el pan nuestro de cada dia. It was an evening of traditional Argentine food and wine with a folkloric musical celebration.

We were the first to arrive at 9:00 and the first to eat (since we were starving). We had the traditional steak of Argentina that can be cut with a butter knife. It was one of the best steaks we’ve every tasted. There is nothing like grass-fed steak--- oh-so juicy and tasty.  At 10:00pm, families with babies and kids and grandparents started arriving. We sipped our Malbec and people watched until the show started. We were the only Americans in the restaurant. As a part of the show, they had people raise their hands as to where they were from and most of the crowd was from Chile, Argentina, Brazil and a few from Europe. It was a fabulous show with great guitarists, singers, dancers and 4 women dressed in traditional gaucho style clothing harmonizing traditional Argentine songs and entertaining the crowd with enthusiasm and beautiful singing. The crowd clapped and whistled. It was worthwhile late night entertainment. At midnight, the place was still hopping, but we were exhausted from our overnight bus trip and long day, so we called it a night and walked back to our hotel, happy to have experienced some cultural music of Argentina. 

A bit about Salta…

We have come from the bottom of Argentina (Ushuaia) to quite close to the top (Salta) of the country. We are about 350 K from the Bolivian border. Salta is located in NW Argentina, surrounded by Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia. It’s known as La Linda--- the beautiful one, because of its amazing scenery together with it’s geographical diversity. Salta province is arid to the west, with subtropical forests, mountains, valleys and gorges in the NW part. The Andes are to the west of the city. Salta city is located in the Valley of Lerma. The weather is temperate due to its altitude.  It rained quite a bit before we arrived. We noticed all the muddy flowing rivers as we came in on the bus. We’ve had nice sunny weather since we arrived. It is very green around Salta.

This is a unique place that we have fallen in love with in such a short time. The architecture of Salta is Hispanic with narrow streets, sidewalks, parks and single story houses.