Travels in Argentina - Salta

After asking for an hour at every company in the bus station, we found that there were no seats available anywhere from Córdoba to Salta because their biggest festival of the year, la fiesta de la Virgen del Milago (the festival of the Virgen of Miracles), was happening the weekend we wanted to arrive. Annoyed, we went back into town and had lunch. Almost on accident, we found another bus office and went in asking about one to Salta. Miraculously, they had two seats available! The seat numbers were strange, 86 and 87 when usually they number up to about 20-odd, and we didn´t quite believe we were actually going until we were on the bus, but after all that and 14 hours we arrived in Salta.

Salta is a city known for its sunny and mild climate. Of course, this meant that it was cloudly the whole time we were there, except for the first few hours after we arrived. It is also well known for its Train to the Clouds, which was broken while we were there.

There was, however, the festival. We went about an hour before it started to get a good spot in front of the cathedral.



It was a good thing we arrived so early, the square was soon packed to the brim. (Rene towered over everyone and the little girl next to us told him his was super tall like a tree.)



After waiting for ages, listening to an outdoor sermon, songs by the choir, the bells ringing, the choir and the bells ringing together (which was a terrible combination) and waiting some more, finally the doors of the church opened and out came a cross. Then a small icon of the virgen.



Then the virgen herself.



Finally, Christ came out as well, but I wasn´t able to get a clear photo of him due to all the waving. The people waved at all the icons, with hankerchiefs, specially flag sold just for the occasion, and even paper towels.



We thought we could go now that the exciting parts were over, but were trapped by the sheer volume of people. No one could move for at least another hour and then only to follow the icons because all the side streets were full of people too!

The next day, all was back to normal.



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The Municipal Education Building







Street scene





Archeological Museum on the Central Plaza.



Interesting light inside the museum. This was an amazing building inside, but unfortunately the room with the display was covered in black fabric with dim lighting so I wasn´t really able to enjoy it.



Cathedral at night.



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For me, most interesting thing about Salta was all the strange sculptures.

In front of the (broken the whole time we were there, though up and running the day we left) gondola.



Ice cream boat.



In the Central Plaza.





They´re big on the see-through sculpture in Salta.





Equality



Huge and in the park.







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Since the gondola was broken, we had to walk up Cerro San Bernardo (St. Bernard´s Hill). The sign at the bottom said there were 1007 steps, but I counted 1088.



One vista along the way.



All along the route were shrines counting out the Stations of the Cross.



View from the top of the hill



We got in trouble from standing on this before I got my photo taken with it =(



San Bernardo himself.



My least favorite word in Spanish, it means lawn.



It looked like a daffadil tree.



View of the hill from the town.