Salta

The second destination of my "winter" vacation here in Argentina was Salta, where I stayed for four nights. It is nicknamed "Salta la Linda" (Salta the beautiful) because it's surrounded by mountains (albeit small mountains, and it's a desert relatively close to the Equator so it rarely snows). But, I have to agree that it is a beautiful city, much more my style than Buenos Aires, minus the climate. I was there during the coldest time of year and walked around in a t-shirt every day!

One of the city's main tourist attractions is a cable car (it's called a "teleférico" in Spanish for anybody who's interested) which takes you to the top of the nearest "mountain," where you are able to see a beautiful view of the city. There are also stairs that go up the "mountain," which I opted to take instead, and it only took about 45 minutes for me to walk up.

The main park of the city was also really cool, probably my favorite I have encountered so far. There was a big lake with a fountain in it that you could paddleboat around, and there was a little island in the middle that was basically a bird sactuary.

And finally, the city is home to the most giant monument to a General I have yet to see. It was in the middle of another cool park that was more or less at the base of the stairs up the mountain, and it was didicated to General Güemes. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Argentineans don't like to get very creative when they name things. The names of streets, plazas, places, monuments,

and everything else are all the same in every town. For example, every town's main plaza is "Plaza 9 de Julio" because that is Argentina's independence day. And "Güemes" is the name of a street a couple of blocks down from the street I live on in Buenos Aires. You have to love it...

Salta itself was awesome, and I really enjoyed just wandering around on the free day I had there. But it's also surrounded by many national parks and geologically beautiful areas, which I took two day trips to see, and will talk about in subsequent posts...

I hope everybody is getting outside and enjoying the summer!!!