High on Salt
I am on a roll with these drafts right now, so let me keep going, and take you back to Salta where I was.
The sleep was horrible. I had a very hard time sleeping, even though I sat in bed rather early. I am not sure what it was, but my body got very itchy at night, to the point I couldn’t even fall asleep.
You might be thinking “Issa, what does this have to do with anything”, so let me tell you why I am mentioning it. I am here to recap my days, and I think that I have to show the good, the bad, and the ugly, and this was an example of the latter. Anyways, back to the story.
I got out of bed at 3 am and headed to a pharmacy. It was nice to know that there were some 24 hour pharmacies around, so did not waste anytime to go there. I grabbed Vaseline, a huge container of Cetaphil (moisturizer), and a cortizoidal cream. I theorized that my itch was due to the dry weather of Salta, since I am prone to eczema since I was born. The mixture of creams all over my body helped calm it down, and was able to then fall asleep for 3 or so hours before my tour was set to start. If you take one thing from my story here, it’s that you should bring or buy moisturizer for your entire body if going anywhere that is drier that where you usually live, to avoid getting into the situation I was in.
I woke up a few hours later and repeated the moisturizing process before getting ready for my day trip. I prepared a yoghurt bowl with the ingredients I had bought the previous evening which was an activity I had not done since I had left Abu Dhabi. The tour bus promptly arrived just after 7 am, and I was on my way to the north of Salta.
The trip today was to Purmamarca and Salinas Grandes, home of the hill of seven colours and the Argentinian salt flats, respectively. I caught a bit of sleep on the bus and woke up about midway through the ride to notice that we were no longer in the green of the city, but rather up in some rockier mountains with a bit of shrubs here and there. We made a few stops on our way to Salinas Grandes, and the scenery was mind-blowing.
There were hills of all mountains of varying colours, which we learned was due to varying geology. The vegetation was also diverse, and my favourite part was the cacti everywhere. Even though I go to the desert often in the UAE, we do not really have cacti growing around since it was a sandy desert. The sight of this gigantic cacti everywhere was very cool to me, for lack of better words that come to mind right now. The bus climbed up all the way to 4’170 meters above sea level, and we were rewarded with some amazing views although drier air and stronger sun. Not to worry for I had learned my lesson and brought along moisturizer as well as sunscreen.
Shortly after, we began descending towards Salinas Grandes, which would be our first long stop for the day. I have to say that the salt flats were overall one of the best things I had done on my entire trip, now that I am flying back home. It was scenery I had never seen before, and don’t believe that you can see in many places around the world.
At Salinas Grandes, there were a few local workers who were set up in many positions ready to take some pictures of you. And the pictures were amazing. The improvised photographers knew all the tips and tricks to take the cool slat flat photos you see everywhere, including the different effects and mirages that can be created.
I had the chance to get a few cool shots over some pools in the salt flats, as well as a picture with Ankvita and Susan, two other solo travellers, from Berlin and Copenhagen respectively, which were also part of my tour.
I cannot stress this enough, but make sure to wear lots of sunscreen, moisturizer, lip balm, and sunglasses when here. The weather is very dry, and the sun very strong, enhanced by the white reflective ground which will set you up for a nice burn if you do not take caution!
We spent about an hour at Salinas Grandes before beginning our journey back to Salta, where we would first stop in Purmamarca for a few hours. We would have time to grab lunch, enjoy the artisan markets, and see the coloured hills. A group of us from the tour grabbed lunch at a local place we found, were we all ordered some local dishes. I started with an empanada, which was really good, and then shared a potato and cheese dish as well as a Humita with the others. Humitas are a mashed corn dish, cooked in corn leaves. The dish was very interesting, and it was nice to have something different to the straight steaks I had been eating most days. I also had a local llama stew, which was also a nice and hearty meal. This was my first time trying llama, and it really reminded me of lamb in both texture and flavour.
After lunch, we walked to a nearby viewpoint of the surrounding hills and their colours, and it was interesting to see how things had changed since the morning (we drove by in the morning and were told to make note of this as colours do shift depending on the lighting). My favourite thing though was the cacti everywhere - I think they might be my favourite plants and am now considering getting some mini-cacti when back in Abu Dhabi.
We had a few more minutes to kill so we made our way down to the local square to check out the artisan markets. It was a bit touristy for me, but I did find a nicer artisan store which seemed to have quality products, and I bought myself a ceramic mate cup decorated with a llama to remind me of this place.
We got back on the bus and made our journey back to Salta, where I took the chance to catch some more sleep. We arrived a few hours later, where our lunch group decided to rest up and meet later for dinner.
It ended up being just myself and Susan at dinner, since the others had either gotten too tired or were MIA. I stopped by another tour agency to set up another trip for the next day and then we went to a local restaurant which was recommended to us - Doña Salta. We ordered a few more local dishes to share, including some empanadas, tamales, and a meat and corn stew. All the dishes were extremely hearty and flavourful, and it was nice to see that there was a very unique cuisine in this region of Argentina.
We then headed back to the hostel (Susan was staying in the same one), where we each called it a night since we both had day long tours in the morning.
The scenery today was very nice, and full of new landscapes that I hadn’t seen before, although the highlights was by far the Salt Flats. Have you seen salt flats before - where? Do you enjoy hearty dishes while travelling? Are you open to experimenting with different meats? Let me know in the comments below but till then, stay positive!
