Tuesday, 19th January, Salta: perfect
We knew Salta was going to be good. After the hell of the Bolivian roads and the ballache of the border crossing, the first asado in La Quiaca suggested that Argentina was going to be lovely haven, but Salta really is the jewel. The drive from La Quiaca to Salta takes a day, and it was one of the most wonderful days driving we have had in months: the landscape takes on a European fell: majestic cyprus shoot up from the abundant green.
Our merry trio (of us and the wonderful Brazilian nutter, Ale’) gathered 4 additions: an Englishman, Mike, and his Thai girlfriend, Lidy (on the road for 2 months on a great rented Transalp) and two Canadians, Dave and John, both doing roughly the same as us. There’s a certain pomp to travelling in convoy with other bikers. 5 bikes speeding down the highways certainly turn heads, especially when the bike in the middle has a sidecar. I felt like we were in a cavalcade. We went through valleys with some of the tallest cacti in the world, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (Mike took the opportunity to mark the moment in his own special way). Lunch was a meat-heavy affair – the meat here is perfection. Steaks which offer blissful little resistance to the bite, melting perfectly.
We arrived in Salta at the end of a long but exquisite day, exhausted. The usual rigmarole of bed-finding (when there are many folk involved in the decision, it takes a while), then blissful sleep.
