NUEVA CIENCIA DEL FUTURO NCF CCU+CCCD 2017

Salta, Argentina

What I did

La Candelaria Parrilla

After breakfast in our hostel we commenced the long journey to Argentina. We took a shared taxi to the border town of Villazón with Patrick, Niamh and an American guy Nick. At Villazón we changed the last of our Bolivianos to Pesos at a really good rate, then walked across the bridge to La Quiaca, Argentina. We had the misfortune of arriving at border control just behind a bus of about 50 people, meaning the whole process took about an hour longer than it should have.

In La Quiaca we got a taxi to the bus terminal where we got surrounded by a load of men from the various bus companies before we even managed to get our luggage out of the boot. They were all trying to sell us tickets to Salta and promising that there was a bus leaving in 5 minutes, that it was direct, luxurious, with snacks and toilets on board. Eventually we went with Flecha bus as we had heard of them before. When buying the ticket we noticed that we were being handed 3 separate tickets, from 2 different companies. We questioned the man about it and he told us to ignore the 2nd 2 tickets and that yes it was a direct, express bus, leaving in 5 minutes.

1 hour later we boarded the bus, after stocking up on snacks for the 7 hour journey and risking a chicken burger from a stall. The bus was comfortable but with no toilet. Plus it was not actually a Flecha bus but a different company.

We arrived in Jujuy about 5 hours later and were told that the bus terminated there. We knew the feicers were up to something in that office in La Quiaca! We then copped on that we had a ticket from this town to Salta, leaving in 2 hours! How annoying. As we got off the bus we spotted a Flecha bus pulling out of the terminal with "Salta" on the front. Then started the saga of trying to board this bus, which had at least 50 empty seats (it was a double decker) - the bus driver wouldn't let us on so we went to the office where the man said we could change our tickets but we'd have to pay 30% extra. At this Róisín went into angry mode which was very successful as the man changed our tickets free of charge but the bus was now leaving the terminal. We ran after it and eventually managed to get on it.

We couldn't believe how blatantly the men had lied to our faces, particularly when asked outright about our particular concerns. Not a great start to the country. Our worst fears were also realised pretty quicky on arriving in Argentina - it is not cheap!

It was raining when we arrived in Salta around 7.30pm so we just got a taxi to a random hostel in our guide book - it wasn't great but we weren't inclined to go looking for anything else in the rain. The rooms were quite expensive so we shared a dorm with Niamh and Patrick.

They had a recommendation for a restaurant which turned out to be just down the street. After 6 and a half weeks in Bolivia we were frothing at the mouth at the thought of Argentinian steak and wine - it didn't disappoint! We got a "parilla" which is a grill of lots of different types of meat - pork, sausages, different cuts of steak - it just kept coming until we eventually had to tell them we had enough. It took a lot of meat to fill the boys but there was plenty more where that came from if they wanted it. Savage. A great night was had, more than making up for the annoyance of the bus journey.