Ah… Salta! Beautiful city hidden in the Andes mountains!
Very lively, Salta is a city you should not miss. The Plaza 9 de Julio is the place to be. It has a lot of restaurants, bars and street performers.

I spend quite some time at Plaza 9 de Julio, letting it all sink in. As I went to have dinner at a nearby restaurant, I found this beautiful Basílica de San Francisco. I did not need a tourist guide book to find this amazing looking church.

After dinner, I joined a Salta by Night experience. We ended up at a bar/pub/restaurant/dance hall/… where a local band was playing folk music from this province. Absolutely great, I think I was the only foreigner over there. Thanks for a great night, Anna!

The next day I took a rental car to Salinas Grandes, the salt flats in the northwest part of Argentina. The landscape north of the city of San Salvador de Jujuy (a tongue twister for non-Spanish speaking people) was just short of stunning. Actually, it was stunning.

I you ever looked closely at a plate full with spaghetti, it may give you an idea how the road west of the town of Purmamarca looks like.

You don’t want to drive a truck over here, yet there were several, each going about 5km/h (up, but also down).
The salt flats are another 70km away from Purmamarca.

The makers of this sign made an error with San Pedro (my hometown) all the way in the top. It was for sure not just 250km away. I may wish to only live about 250km away from this magical place!

Going back the same twisty road to Purmamarca gave me an opportunity to view this beautiful landscape from a different direction.

And soon, I landed in the country of cacti. Those plants who stick their middle finger up to everything.