We made it to Argentina!
After a Bolivian bus ticket scam, a 3 hour wait to cross the border and an 8 hour bus ride we have finally made it to the charming city of Salta, Argentina. The heat on the Bolivian border was searing, and the queue of people crossing from Villazon (Bolivia) into La Quiaca (Argentina) stretched depressingly far into the distance.
Villazon is a friendly wild-west kind of town, framed by blood coloured mountains. The town hums with vendors selling fake DVDs, clothes, saltenas (a type of samosa) and sandwiches which have probably been out in the sun too long. After a 3 hour wait just to get our passport stamped we trotted across to the new frontier. We were desperate for food and water, but we had to get our bus organised. Unfortunately, after much drama we discovered that our tickets that were issued to us at the Tupiza bus station in Bolivia were fake and that we would be unable to travel to Salta as planned. The bus operator in La Quiaca took one look at our tickets and a dark look came over his eyes. He told us that it was our problem and in no uncertain terms he told us to ´bugger off´ and get out of his office. We started to think that we were doomed to stay in this dodgy border town forever, but we stayed staunch and tried a lot of fast talking to get the bus ticket we had paid for.
The argentinian side of the border was rough and unrelenting. Lightning jarred menacingly across the sky as we walked through the dodgy border town. Gone were the charming smiles of the Bolivian people, gone were the safe villages temming with vibrant markets, gone was our safe little haven. Now we had to be on our guard.
Fortunately a friendly bus company worker made some phone calls and managed to slip us onto an overnight bus to Salta. After all this drama, we are finally in Salta, which is like the ´garden city´ of Argentina. The city is glossed with beautiful colonial buildings, a gondola and a pedal boat lake. A fruit vendor has already tried to rip me off, but I wasn´t having a bar of it!
It has been difficult to find accommodation over the New Year period but after a lot of phone calls in Spanish to various youth hostels, we have sorted things out.
Salta has a sophisticated European charm about it, it´s definitely a lot less hectic and crazed than Buenos Aires. The streets are lined with majestic oak trees and proud old colonial buildings. Nick is hoping to go horse riding in a couple of days, apparently he will get an amazing BBQ complete with hunky Argentinian steak.
Coming back into Argentina from Bolivia has given us all a touch of culture shock. We have just come from a 3rd world country, so it is a real bonus for us that we no longer have to buy toilet paper all the time. (Hostels in Argentina have loo paper.) And it´s easy in Argentina to find soap.
Salta has an edge of urban modernism: Flashy looking banks, boutique clothing stores.....The poverty is not so apparent here as it is in Bolivia. In Bolivia we were surrounded by poor locals desperately trying to make a living. Some would stand proudly by their little cheese stall by the side of the road until very late at night. Whenever I said hello I got a beaming warm smile in return. I find myself looking back reminiscently on my time in Bolivia. Bolivia really is a spunky country doing very well for itself despite its poverty. Immigration systems at borders are very streamlined despite the fact that everything is done manually. The immigration office on the Bolivian side of the Argentine border had no computers, but it was an incredibly efficient system.
I miss the archaic manual systems of Bolivia, like the drawing pins on a big board used in movie theatres to allocate seats and the run down chicken buses that seem to get you from A to B even though you are scared stiff riding in them.
Bye for now,
Brittany
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