Mon/Tues 19th/20th Jan: Salta

We arrived in Salta around 7.30-8am. I walked into town and after trying two hostels which were full got a room in a gorgeous little guesthouse. It was a bit expensive for my budget - 80 pesos (eu20) but it was quality so I didn't mind.

Salta was ok. Coming back into Argentina felt a bit like returning to Europe. To be I wasn't impressed. After coming from Peru and Bolivia it felt a bit bland. Its a modern town with a busy centre and quite a few English chain stores along the high street. Probably the highlight of Salta was the food and getting two football tops, River Plate and a local team, Gimnasio y Tiro, which resembles a Cov top. There's a good cable car ride that takes you to the top of a hill overlooking the city and that was the high point, literally.

I took a bus to Mendoza on Tuesday afternoon, happy enough to be moving on. This journey turned into a little adventure as well. Buying bus tickets in Argentina can be confusing. All the companies act as agents for each other so even if you go and buy a ticket at the counter of one company they may be issuing a ticke to you for travel with a different company. This is what happened to me. I went to a counter to buy a ticket from a company called Chevalier. They issued me with a ticket for a company called Flecha Bus. Now, what I didn't see and a bus conductor subsequently missed was that the small print indicated I would be travelling with a subsidiary company called Andesmar. I handed my ticket to a bus conductor who showed me to my seat. This was a luxury bus and I couldn't believe my luck. 5hrs later we stop in a town to pick up more passengers and I'm taken aside and told there's a problem, that I'm on the wrong bus. I'm brought to an Andesmar counter in the station and its confirmed that I've taken the wrong bus. I'm told to wait here until 8.30pm when I can catch the bus I'm supposed to be on. What I don't realise is that we've changed timezones within Argentina. According to my watch its 7.10pm when in reality its 8.10pm. I have a wander around the terminal thinking I have nearly an hour and a half to kill. I consider going into a restaurant for a meal but decide against it and intead I return to the relevant platform to wait there. I see a clock which reads 8.30pm. Now I'm confused. I rush to the platform and see my bus there already. I board it quickly and am given a quizzical look by the conductor who had wondered where the person in seat 53 had gone to. It doesn't matter, I'm on the right bus now back but it takes me a couple of minutes to figure out why my watch was out by 1 hour. Roll on Mendoza.