I eased into Argentina. It’s like the universe (or maybe Pachamama. She took better care of me in Bolivia than she did in Peru) really didn’t want me to get disappointed after leaving beautiful, intriguing, fascinating Bolivia.

I decided to stop in Tilcara on the way to Salta because I really liked Tupiza and I had a similar gut feeling about Tilcara when I read about it. And man did I like Tilcara. There are about 3500 inhabitants so its really not very big. In fact, it’s so small that if you walk the wrong way when you come out of the bus station, late afternoon on a Sunday, walking through empty streets lined by adobe houses, and you eventually find someone to ask for directions, you’ll still find a hostel well before its dark. Considering how few maps the Lonely Planet gives me, I’ve done surprisingly well not getting too lost on this continent.

After checking into a hostel, I went wandering about town, passed a bunch of cute shops and ateliers, had a brief flashback to day two of my Salar de Uyuni tour when a little stall selling CDs and DVDs on the main square was blasting ‘Coco Jambo’ (our brief respite from ‘Bailando’, of which we heard every.single.version.ever.recorded, browsed the textiles at the market stalls and then found a cute little cafe that did an actual decent cafe con leche. And they were a book- and music store too and had wifi. Uhm, how much is this a town of my head? Very it turns out because The Cure featured on the stereo’s playlist. If there are no further posts on here going forwards, it’s not because my bus went over a cliff or I got kidnapped and held hostage until my bank account got emptied, it’s because I got stuck in Tilcara with the painters and jewellery makers and the beautiful quebradas surrounding the town. Unlike Tupiza, Tilcara is fairly touristy though (predominantly Argentine) and there are lots of restaurants that fall well outside my budget. But there are also great cheap ones with excellent options for a menu del dia or tamales and humitas so I didn’t feel like I had been totally detached from my Bolivia-habits. I even passed a restaurant that boasted piqué macho on its blackboard menu. But I’ve decided to be healthier in Argentina (except for the addition of red wine to my diet, of course) so I didn’t check if its like the Bolivian version.

It was quiet at my hostel at 9pm the day I arrived so I spent my first evening in Argentina at a peña, trying to understand what the singer was saying between songs but to no avail. I really thought I’d be close to fluent in Spanish by now but annoyingly I’m not even close. But other people in the peña were laughing and singing along so I reckon it’s safe to assume that he was good. The accent is also way harder to understand than I expected. Argentines do not speak clearly. Which I learned when I returned to my hostel and immediately got a glass of red wine shoved into my hand by one of the Argentines staying there who then proceeded to try to have a conversation with me in Spanish. After the third time I had to reply ‘no entiendo’, I bet he regretted having come over to me at all. Speak like they do in Guatemala or Bolivia and we’ll have a fairly decent chat. You spring any other accent or pace of Spanish on me and we’ll struggle. A lot.

The next day I went to the Pucara ruins. I totally lucked out that it was a Monday which meant it was free entry to both the ruins and the archeological museum. The views were great from the hill where they are located but after the many other ruins I’ve seen along my way, they were far from impressive. The cemetery on the outskirts of town was much more impressive – the tombs are decorated with colourful paper flowers and I went there as the sun was setting (because the light is better at that time of the day) which undoubtedly helped.

 While in Tilcara, I also ran into someone from my hostel in Sucre and along with a few other people from his hostel, we set off for the trek to la Garganta del Diablo. If anyone ever finds themselves in Tilcara and set off on this trek, look out for the clearly signposted path once you’ve turned off the main road. If you chat away and miss it, you’ll end up walking all the way up the hill on the wrong side of the river. From there you can spot the waterfall you meant to get to waaaaay off on the other side of the gorge. And if you then think that you can reach the waterfall by walking along the river, prepare to walk barefoot and scramble through part of the river before reaching a dead end. We saw some beautiful views though so it wasn’t a complete waste that we didn’t make it to the waterfall in the end. But it was hot and we did walk way longer than we were expecting to so the subsequent beer back in town was a very welcome refreshment after our trekking efforts.

After a bit of wine and cheese (we are definitely not in Bolivia anymore) in the evening, I left to catch the 23.30 bus to Salta. It was only a 4 hr drive but I figured I could pass a few hours at Salta’s bus station waiting for it to be light before going to find a hostel.

And what should I say about Salta? Salta, which I had such high expectations for and which turned out to be a bit blah. There is a Lonely Planet writer who definitely earned his keep writing about this place and talking it up as the new popular backpacker destination because I just didn’t find it anything special. Unlike Tilcara, all hints of Bolivia were gone here so maybe it just finally hit home for me that I’m no longer there. I visited a few museums (the MAAM did a really good job displaying an actual inca child that was one of three they found buried on top of a volcano, they somehow avoided making it feel macabre. But the highlight of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo was the life size illustrations of elephants displayed in the window. The rest? Totally blah), found a supermarket so I could finally replace the packs of crumbled mariekiks with granola bars, and walked up Cerro San Bernardo (saved myself the equivalent of a decent bottle of Malbec by walking instead of taking the teleferico. I’ve got my priorities straight). The view? Blah.

But I also managed to get all my souvenirs shipped back to the UK. That was 6.5kg literally off my back but also cleaned me out of pesos. So I had to change money for a second time in Salta. And changing money in Argentina is a lot like a streamlined, more businesslike version of changing money at border crossings. But everyone does it. Dollars hold their value, pesos (especially currently) do not. The first time I changed money in Salta was on the main square. Just right in open view of the entire place, the guy quoted me a rate (which improved slightly when I increased the amount of dollars I wanted to exchange to 200) and counted out the 100 pesos bills. The blue market rate when I arrived in Argentina was 13.1 (the official rate 8.5). Just a few weeks earlier it had been as high as 16. Apparently the stock market is doing something that’s giving me less pesos for my dollars. I’d appreciate it if it would stop doing that. When I needed more pesos after my post office visit the next day, I found another guy on the main plaza but now the rate was down to 12.6. I wasn’t accepting that so went up a side street hoping there might be some slightly less opportunistic money exchangers there. And I found one who would match the current blue dollar rate but this time I was asked to follow him, into a little cafe where he led me to a table at the very back and asked me to take a seat. As the day before, he counted out the notes which I then went trough one by one, pretending I knew how to spot if any of them were fake, before handing over my dollars and leaving the cafe with a wad of pesos. Easy. And far less dodgy than it sounds.

So overall, I didn’t really feel much about Salta. I ate a lot of empanadas which they are supposedly famous for and they were alright but nothing extraordinary and much smaller than in Ecuador and Peru so even they let me down slightly. And also a fair few super panchos which at the grand total of 6 pesos (US$0.50 at the current blue market dollar rate) unsurprisingly did not manage to give the danish pølsemænd a run for their money. Cheap but blah. The weather was humid and grey and overcast. Totally blah. I also tried to get my head around the opening hours of things in Argentina but while I like the idea of siesta, I find it crazy annoying that its impossible to do really anything between 1 and 4. Thankfully the patio de empanadas (that is literally what it is) doesn’t shut down so will always whip up an empanada or two whatever time you are hungry. And one of the cafes on the main square will serve you your beer in a wine cooler while you wait for the museum to open back up again, even when it’s not quite hot enough to require that. I also did laundry and even had a nice chat with the old man running the shop. That didn’t stop them being the first laundry service on my way to loose stuff – I’m now short one navy sock and one pair of underwear. Not the end of the world but apparently the standard of the lavanderias in Salta is also very blah.

But thankfully, I have all the freedom in the world at the moment and I don’t need my beer in wine coolers to enjoy it, so I left Salta behind after a few nights and headed to Cafayate. The main thought in my head the 4 hr ride there was ‘come on Argentina, be better’.  Except when there was a 30min lunch stop when my main thought was ‘come on Argentina, you can’t even do a 4 hour bus ride without a break?’.

The first 15min weren’t good for Cafayate. As soon as we got off the bus, we were bombarded with hostel offers and flyers and lots of hostel self promotion. I’ve had that happen on other trips in the past but never before on this trip. And it was annoying. One woman was very insistent I go to her hostel, staying when everyone else had left, ignoring my ‘no thanks I’m alright’ and interrupting coooonstantly when I was looking for the notes a guy at my last hostel had written out to me about places to stay and things to do (he had a good guidebook which I was seriously envious of). When she went so far as to say I shouldn’t stay at the hostel another guy had given me a flyer for because it wouldn’t be safe for me being on my own because too many guys stay there, I thought ‘watch it, lady. It’s been 5 freakin’ months on the road. Do not lecture me on what I can’t or shouldn’t do as a solo female traveller’. And then I went to that hostel. Which turned out to be the best kind if hostel I could have hoped for. But I would like to make it a point for anybody ever travelling anywhere: if you meet a girl travelling on her own, do not do the whole ‘OMG that’s so dangerous/scary. Why?!!’ -thing. It’s annoying. It makes you feel belittled and like you have to justify why you are in your own. Which is easy for me (no one wanted to come) but my biggest wish if anyone who isn’t related to me or who didn’t click on the link to this in facebook thinking it’d be a short casual little read (soz guys, I ramble. Especially in writing when there is no one to stop me) reads this is to stop thinking it isn’t possible for absolutely anyone (male, female, old, young, slightly-in-denial-about-one’s-actual-age, out-going, introverted, organised, dis-organised, beer-drinker, wine-drinker, non-drinker) to travel alone without any problems. I don’t mind people asking how its been to travel on my own. And I’m more than happy to share experiences, concerns, considerations, issues. But I mind when they load their comments as if I should know better than to do it. Don’t judge. It’s not hard to be a sensible traveller and keeping your wits about you. Beyond that, you just have to take things as they come, dangerous stuff can happen to absolutely anyone.

Rant over, the hostel was so laid back, the people were lovely and the staff were brilliant. There was a little courtyard garden with a bar and wooden tables next to a small vineyard and the atmosphere was wicked – people chilling till late, drinking wine, playing music (not on iPods, with instruments).

I did a tour to the Quebrada de las Conchas which was absolutely beautiful and another one of those places where photos don’t do it justice. I also visited a wine museum and went wine tasting at a few bodegas (so I’m officially a wine expert now) but I mostly spent lots of time chilling in the sunshine. Whilst drinking wine. I also tried wine ice-cream – Torrentés and Cabernet – but can’t say that I would recommend it. Cactus, however, I would.

My next point of call was Tafí del Valle. To get there, I really stretched the concept of ‘overnight bus’, managing to turn a 3 hr trip into just that. There was a bus leaving Cafayate at 2.15am so I hung out at the hostel and had a nap in a hammock before catching that bus which then arrived into Tafí at 5am. There, it was rainy and misty so instead of catching an awesome sunrise (the bus terminal overlooks the town set deeper in the valley), I just got to see it turn from pitch black to dawn to day underneath a cloudy sky over the course of my 2 hr wait there.

Tafí is not geared towards the budget traveller, hostels are few and far between and expensive. I went to a cute one though but pretty quickly decided this was probably only for me for one night. But Tafí’s setting overall is beautiful – and so different from the landscape I’ve been seeing for the last few weeks. It’s green and the hills more rolling than the imposing quebradas of my last few stops. But it was also really cloudy while I was there which was disappointing and definitely didn’t help show Tafí at its best.

A couple from my hostel in Cafayate were at the same hostel in Tafí (they left on a more sensible afternoon bus so arrived the day before me) so I went with them on a little hike around the area – via the lake and onwards to El Mollar a few hours walk away. There, we visited the most random attempt at an archaeological attraction ever – lots of standing rocks, some with some minor engravings on them scattered along the edge of a small field. There were some signage in Spanish which told us that they don’t really know what these were for but that they were important to preserve so future generations can learn about the history. We all felt they might need to do a bit more work to achieve that.

Dinner was included in the price of the hostel and was really good – probably a Tafí highlight but when the weather was no better the next morning, we decided it was time to leave.

So that means it’s officially time to make a move to the bigger cities. Because after lots of lovely faffing about in regional towns of northern Argentina, I’m now on the bus to Tucumán where the plan is to catch a nightbus tonight to Córdoba. It will probably be a shock to my senses but its about time i make a proper dent in the trip to BA.

Today I’m listening to: nothing – I didn’t use my iPod in Tilcara or Salta and I lost my headphones in Cafayate (but found them underneath my backpack when I packed up! I was so happy!)