Horseriding in Salta

A gaucho cowboy with Sayta: photo courtesy of the lovely Jen Fielden

Sorry posts have been a little thin on the ground of late: we have less downtime now we´re moving around a bit more. So, the journey to Salta. Being cheeky, and having booked flights well in advance, we negated travelling for over 24 hours on several buses and instead flew. Considering our plane over from Madrid was about as old as me and had just a few communal TVs, the Aerolineas Argentina plane was pure luxury. A few hours in the sky and I had watched all the How I Met Your Mother episodes on offer on our private individual screens and generally had a lovely time.

We took a local bus from the airport into town. No bus signs, so we walked out of the airport, onto the motorway and to a space on the adjacent dirt track before flagging down a bus (happily my Spanish is coming on leaps and bounds for me to understand such vague directions!). We hadn´t change so the bus got together, volunteered someone to pay on his bus card and we handed over the equivalent of a 50p note to our kind saviour. A good first impression of Salta!

We´d decided we were just going to relax in the picturesque town, plan and generally get our heads together after our day of doom in Iguassu. Luckily, our hostel (7 Duendes - reccomended) had a few large chilling out areas, including a garden with BBQ and cabana so we spent out time eating steak, drinking wine and generally just making friends. We´re hoping to meet up with one couple for the jungle tour, and have travelled on to Tupiza, Boliva, with three others.

The highlight of what was otherwise a very lazy few days in Salta was our day horseriding. We went with Sayta Horseriding, and were joined by one of our new friends, Nicole, and Jen, a girl from England travelling alone, with whom we´re meeting up with in Cusco for her birthday. One of the owners picked us up and drove us into the beautiful Argentinian countryside, where we joined about ten or so others and sat down to a hearty breakfast.

Our trek lasted 3 hours, and meandered throughout the Argentinian landscape. Thankfully it catered for all levels, so we got a few gallops in as well and a lot of walking or trotting. Felt good to be on a horse again! Our gaucho guides were great fun, and were very patient in explaining how to ride gaucho style - reins in one hand being the biggest difference. You encourage the horses to go faster by making a big squelchy kissing noise...weirdly very difficult to do.

We arrived back from our excursion to the farm and feasted on local wine and the most delicious spread of never-ending steak, salads, homemade pesto, bread, local lentil things and vegetables. Oh, and more wine. Came back very full and just a little drunk. Happy days!