When we left El Calafate and arrived to Bariloche, we didn’t know we just missed the ski season. We were pretty disappointed as it was a big wish of Jure to hit the ski slopes of Argentina. But instead we enjoyed the nice lake scenery and we went hiking. The town is very touristy – countless souvenir shops, shops with sports equipment, an ice hall … At the time of our visit they celebrated “semana del la juventud” (youth week) and they had a big youth market at the main square with stalls full of cheap food and drinks. Exactly what we needed. 🙂
In Mendoza we again had a bit of bad luck – we were there on a Sunday, when almost everything was closed, even the wine houses (so no proper wine tasting was possible 😦 ). We had to find an alternative again, so we decided to be normal tourists – we went on a hop on hop off bus (110 ARP). And it was really fun – we didn’t have to worry about how to get from one attraction to the other, the bus has a good English audio guide and the buses run pretty frequent through Mendoza’s green streets – did we tell you, that the city has a unique canal system from the Inca times, that keeps all the trees in Mendoza green? When we felt the signs of hunger in our tummies, we had another problem – it was mother’s day in Argentina and all the restaurants were full with long waiting queues. So we went to a local fast food place. In the afternoon we were lucky to see (free) a dance show of Argentinian and Chilean youth. In the evening we strolled around the Indenpendencia Square, where candy, leather, jewellery and souvenir stalls were offering their goods. I really liked a few things, but with so many months of travelling ahead of us I didn’t want to make our backpacks heavier.
Our last destination in Argentina was Salta. What a lovely city! We really liked it, because instantly you can feel the influence of Bolivia, it is pretty small and manageable on foot, cheap compared to the rest of Argentina and very important – finally we found jakarandas (remember from Buenos Aires?) blossoming. The city has a modern and interesting museum about the history of this region and the highlight is a children mummy, which is perfectly preserved and on display in a special glass container on -200C. They actually have 3 mummies of children (which were sacrificed as offerings to the goddess Pachamama), but only one is always on display. They also have another less preserved mummy, which is pretty scary – it’s staring right at you with empty eyes holes and a wide open mouth. Unfortunately it is forbidden to take pictures inside the museum, so if you are interested in this, you’ll have to google it, because we can’t offer any pictures. We also hiked again – no, usually we hike only a few times a year, now in almost every city. 🙂 We went on the San Bernardo Hill, which is connected with the city with a cable car. But it was sunny and it’s always good to save a bit. The view was nice, but we were more impressed by the nice gardens on top. Really lovely and well kept. We had to spend our last Pesos, so we went to the market on a “milanesa” feast (in Europe known as Wiener Schnitzel) and for desert we spoiled ourselves on the night market with strawberries and cream.
A little bad timing didn’t ruin our last week in Argentina, although we planned a little more exciting things. Thank you Argentina, don’t cry for us and take care of our countrymen.
sLOVEnians travel 