Still in need of a pony.

Nate and I managed to drag ourselves away from Salta La Linda and its delightful assortment of anthro museums and locutorios long enough to take an excursion on horseback through the nearby mountains. Our riding party consisted of six British schoolboys and Alejandro, our patient guide. The schoolboys were keen on role playing games and Pixar movies. Aah, the exciting debates they had on our ride from Salta to the ranch - would a sequel to Monsters, Inc. be any good? Was The Incredibles awesome, or super awesome?

The ranch was a former convent, set in the hills high above Salta. We toured the old chapel, and then got down to the all important business of horse selection. Nate and I classified ourselves as "experienced" riders (after all, we had ridden independently relatively recently), and were accordingly rewarded with two of the better horses. I also proved myself to be a vastly improved rider by getting on the horses unassisted.

We were somewhat worried that riding with a guide would cramp our style, but Alejandro proved to be an excellent companion, knowledgeable not only about horses but also Argentine drug laws and drug production, cures for altitude sickeness, wine making, people of the countryside, Andean cuisine, etc, etc. And, he had no objection to letting the horses stretch their legs, and even permitted us to engage in the occasional race. At the insistence of the British boys, he even agreed to participate in one, his far superior horse quickly outpacing the rest of the field, and almost as quickly disappearing down the road and out of sight. -EMW

So Much Water So Far From Home

With less than a week to go in our trip, Emily and I have decided to check off one of the last of Argentina's outstanding attractions. By travelling to Iguazu Falls, tucked neatly into the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, not only would we be able to see one of the country's most famous natural sites, we'd also be completing a four month circuit that's brought us clockwise around nearly the entire perimeter of Argentina. We decided that it was worth going a little bit out of our way.

We broke up our 24-hour bus ride from Salta with a stopover in sweltering Resistencia--a likable if disagreeably steamy city filled with all manner of sculptures and other public art. It being Sunday, all of the museums were closed, so we ordered a parillada and hunkered down in air conditioning. The nadir came later that evening when the waiter at a bus station confiteria refused to change the channel from a post-game soccer press conference to Dice-K's big start against the Yankees. We actually watched every pitch of the first four innings on MLB Gameday while waiting for our bus to arrive. It was pretty anti-climactic.

Because we hadn't slept in a bed in three days, we spent our first afternoon in Puerto Iguazu napping. But by the second morning, we were ready for the park. Aside for the Perito Moreno glacier, the falls at Iguazu are Argentina's most beloved tourist attraction. There are nearly 300 separate falls, spread over an area of more than 2 miles, and their lush, subtropical setting aids the overall effect immensely. They're taller than Niagara, and half again as wide, but they don't serve as a backdrop for anything like the Serial Killer Wax Museum, so there are some drawbacks.

At any rate, Argentina has done an admirable job of building many miles of fairly discreet catwalks around the park, allowing for a multiplicity of misty vantage points. Many of the areas were constantly clogged by tour groups, but we found some relief on Isla San Martin--a small island at the base of one of the more impressive sets of falls. Elsewhere in the park we observed caiman alligators, multicolored butterflies, and grotesque, wet-snouted coaties, which executed complexly choreographed maneuvers in an attempt to steal our overpriced lunches.

We left Iguazu in the pouring rain, with plans to return the next day in order to take a boat ride and hit the few remaining walking trails. Unfortunately, nearly 24-hours later, the rain still hasn't let up, leaving us with one more morning to try to make a run at it. Afterwards, it's back to Buenos Aires and then home. But stay tuned, because we're not quite finished posting. We're planning an epic best/worst list to wrap things up. -NSH

Woozy in Wine Country

We finally got around to taking one of the many day trips from Salta. Located just shy of 200 km from the city, Cafayate is a lazy, pleasant village known throughout Argentina for its stellar wines. A number of bodegas grow their grapes in the area's high-altitude vineyards--well irrigated and perpetually sunny, the region is apparently quite hospitable to malbec, cabarnet, and torrontes varieties.

In the last three-and-a-half months alone, we've logged literally thousands of miles by bus, train, 4x4, and van. Sick of riding, we decided to try something altogether different and drive. Emily piloted us past the Salta city limits (I stupidly left my license in Buenos Aires, and decided to ride shotgun so as not to become the second member of my immediate family to see the inside of a Latin American prison). We flew through the multicolored Quebrada de la Concha (I'm pretty sure that this translates into something completely indecent) and landed in Cafayate around two. After a stop at a tourist kiosk for a map of the bodegas, we headed off in search of what we figured would be the first of many free drinking spots.

Bodega Etchart churns out one of our all-time favorite budget malbecs. When we arrived, the bottling area was a blur of noise and movement, as bottles rolled down the conveyor to get corked. A woman motioned us into a dimly lit tasting room, poured us eight glasses of wine, and left. "For you!" she said, pushing four in each of our directions. By the time she returned minutes later, we were buzzing. We said we'd buy a couple of $3 bottles, which pleased her enough that she decided to pour us one more glass of their premium blend for good measure.

As we stumbled away from Etchart, blinking woozily in the sun, we quickly realized that we were going to need to scale back the rest of the afternoon. We visited a no-frills table swill bodega and admired the pyramid of cheap jugs in their showroom before politely declining a tasting. After a glass of torrontes and malbec at Vaseja Secreta, plus a bowl of cabernet sauvignon ice cream at a local heladeria, we were ready to call it a day.

We returned the car without incident late that evening, the odometer reading about 10 km short of our purchased allotment. Between Cafayate and our bodega tour of Mendoza, we've made out pretty well on our binging excursions. -NSH

Our Salta Siesta

Sometimes we don't post for days at a time because we're too busy moving from place to place to write anything down. In this most recent case, however, we've just been too lazy. Since the very end of March, we've been living in a small but pleasant apartment in Salta, a historic city in the northwest of Argentina. We have cable TV, a stack of books, a hot plate, and a stash of wine bottles. We don't get out all that much, hence the lack of posts.

Salta is sprinkled with attractive churches and neo-colonial buildings, most of them clustered around the scenic central plaza. Sometimes we walk down in the late afternoon to drink coffee and watch the crowds of school teachers who are invariably demonstrating. They've set up a home base beneath the arches of the white-washed Cabildo, where they hang caricatures of greedy Argentine politicians and chant for fair pay. A recent newspaper editorial chided the teachers for being too selfish about their rights. "What about our right to hang out under the Cabildo!" the Salteno complained. I think the crisis might be coming to a head.

Speaking of crises, we've lately taken to watching Cronicas with some frequency. Somehow more crass than Fox News, the sensationalist TV channel has a knack for eye-grabbing headlines ("Three People and a Bolivian Dead in Fire") and outrageous footage. They always manage to beat the cops to the scene of the crime--a couple of nights ago we watched masked protestors set fire to a politician's office in Buenos Aires, the police arriving ten minutes into the live report.

For the most part, however, life in Salta is pretty tame. We've hit up most of the major attractions, including a cable car up to the adjacent Cerro San Bernardo, and both of the city's anthropology museums, one of which houses Incan mummies. Other museums we invariably visit while they're closed for siesta, and vow to wake up early enough for the next day.

We've got about two more weeks in Salta, and hope to spend some of that time exploring the nearby Cafayate vineyards and maybe a cloud forest or two. We also skipped over some Patagonian highlights in recent posts, so maybe we'll write about those retroactively. But, it's also quite possible that we'll be too busy watching Cronicas and drinking malbec to manage much of anything. Time will tell. -NSH