Salta: It's a small city after all

Day Two. Kristian and the gang went to Cafayate for the day. I chose to stay behind and explore the city of Salta, which Kristian said would take all of ten minutes. Well, he was close to right. A few hours and boom. Done. But I had fun on my own anyway.

After booking tours for Wednesday and Thursday, I walked around the city of Salta. The city square is beautiful, with pastel-colored buildings on every side. There's a pink church, a pale yellow museum and some sky blue buildings, too. I went to the MAAM which is an archaeological museum featuring the Incan/Andean culture that predated the current state of Argentina's Northwest. It reminded me a lot of my Anthropology class from college. I'm not an archaeology person, but it was cool to see old fabrics and quilts. The coolest part of the museum is the rotating exhibit of Los Ninos de Llulliallaca.

These are the famous mummies of the children from an Andean village known as Llullaillaca. Apparently, the custom was to preserve bodies extremely well. So now there are certain museums who showcase these children. It sounds really creepy, but honestly the 15 year-old girl I saw didn't look like a person. She was dressed in a lot of layers of clothing, so it more looked like old fabric on a clay replica. Kind of gross that that is what you look like if you are mummified, but a lot harder to imagine as a real, live person. That was the highlight of the museum for me.

Then I wandered through the city center to the Teleferico of the Alta Montaña. The cable car takes passengers up to the famous viewpoint of the city (as opposed to the less famous but even more beautiful one in San Lorenzo). I took the cable car up to the top. It was cold up on that there hill. So I only mosied around for a tiny bit before looking for the walkway down. One thing about Argentina: there are no signs for anything - and when there are they are wrong.

So I walked in circles for a solid period of time trying to find the way down. Finally, I found the stairwell and began the very cold and very long descent. At least it took up some of my day. When I finally reached the bottom, I was in a really swanky little neighborhood for such a poor mountain city. Stone walkways, gated driveways, front porches. If I lived in Salta Id live here.

And by the time I got back I had time to snuggle up by the gas heater in the lobby and watch a movie. An uneventful day compared to most of my others...but at least I engaged with the city I had traveled so far to see.

BESOS!