Horseriding With Gauchos In Salta

Our next destination after wonderful Cafayate was Salta which was a meagre four hour journey north by bus through the Quebrada De Las Conchas (aka. those rocks again). The main reason for heading to Salta was to go whitewater rafting on the Rio Juramento, we’d loved our rafting experience in Bali so much and were very keen to try it again. We even emailed the only agency in town to check it was available and of course they said "yes, no problem" but when we went to the office there was of course 'a problem’ and we couldn’t go.

Exploring Cafayate A Wine Lover’s Paradise

Cafayate is a tiny town famous for producing Torrentes wine and its quite tricky to reach when you’re heading north so not many travellers venture here which made it even more appealing to us. From Mendoza we took an overnight bus of 15 hours to Tucaman and this bus was by far the worst we’d travelled on so far, inside it was very dated and scruffy with no service but it did stop a lot so we were able to grab some food and use a cleaner bathroom along the way. 

Fine Wine & Fabulous Food In Mendoza

We headed to Mendoza full of excitement as its Argentina’s wine capital producing 80% of the countries wine every year. We’d already enjoyed some fantastic Argentinian wines over the past ten days and were eager to learn more about them plus, of course taste them. Steve had organised a very special date with a premium bodega through his previous employer too! Good times guaranteed. Unfortunately our 24 hour bus ride from Puerto Madryn was not a great one due to only Spanish films and no wine but, we did play bingo in Spanish! We didn’t win though and were full of envy when the bingo champ collected his bottle of wine!

The Penguins Of Punto Tombo

We’d read about and heard a rumour that there was a one million strong penguin colony on the central Patagonian coast, and our research showed that they were in town (shore) until the end of March - just like us! We were feeling lucky so caught another long distance night bus to the colder climes of Southern Argentina and the seaside town of Puerto Madryn. For this journey we traveled with Andesmar in the same class as before and though it was alright we’d definitely been spoiled by Rio Uruguay. It was raining very heavily in Buenos Aires so our bus was delayed by a few hours which meant our dinner was served at 1.30am, by this point we thought we weren’t getting anyway so were just glad to get fed.

Big Eats And Cultural Delights In Buenos Aires

Our journey to Buenos Aires involved our first overnight bus journey and although we’d heard that the buses in Argentina were great we were a still a little apprehensive. There was only one bus company for our route but we opted to travel Cama class which meant an almost flat bed and all meals included, we paid 800 ARS (£62)each. Bus travel in Argentina is expensive but to be fair though we were travelling 1,350 kilometres! Once onboard our minds were put at ease, we had huge comfortable seats and within ten minutes we were eating cake and dulce de leche toffees. They even had a couple of films to entertain us so it was just like being on a long haul flight, we slept well and awoke at the massive three storey bus station in Buenos Aires.

Day Tripping At Iguazu Falls

Situated right on the border between Argentina and Brazil Iguazu Falls are a popular stop on the traveller trail in South America. After our crazy week of late nights in Rio De Janeiro for carnival we were definitely in need of a couple of relaxed days in the countryside. We landed in Foz De Iguazu fresh from two short and very comfortable flights on Brazil’s budget airline Azul complete with free snacks and soft drinks - easyjet take note! Our next mission was to cross the border into Argentina and get to the town of Puerto Iguazu where our hostel Residencia Noelia awaited us.