Northern Argentina and back into Chile

From Iguazú Falls we headed west and stopped in a little town called Resistencia. It is supposed to be the city of sculptures, which there were many sculptures but it wasn´t as impressive as we expected. After that we continued west to Salta, which is at the foothills of the Andes. Salta was a very beautiful, comfortable city; I guess that is why Richard Gere just bought property here. Salta´s big tourist thing is the Train to the Clouds, but when we arrived we learned that it is not operating now. Instead of this adventure we decided to rent a car again and go the same route the train would have taken, and loop back around to Salta which would give us a chance to see salt flats and the colored mountains. This ended up being an adventure, which it seems every time we rent a car it is an adventure. The car was not in the best health when we got it, but on the last leg of the journey it broke down. It ended up working out very well, but it was a little nerve racking. From Salta we took a bus through the mountains back into Chile. We are now in San Pedro, Chile which is in the Atacama Desert, which is the driest desert in the world. It was a very interesting bus ride. We got as high as 5,000 meters (15,000 ft), the bus was going incredibly slow, and people were getting very sick from the altitude and vomiting. At least Nick and I were not affected that much. The landscape resembled what we imagine Mars to look like . From San Pedro we plan to take a three day jeep tour across a huge salt flat into Bolivia. It should be fun...we are supposed to see flamingos, geysers, and much much more.One of the sculptures in Resistencia that won a prize in the contest they hold every other year.

Another protest, this time in Resistencia. We are not sure what this one was about, but it wasn´t too rowdy. The riot police looked very bored.

A sculpture carving contest held in the plaza in Salta.

Us in the cable car going up to the top of Cerro San Bernardo in Salta

The city of Salta and the cable car.

When we got to the top of the hill we found a million of these huge spiders hanging in the trees.

Lunch time on our rental car adventure.

Huge catcus going up the valley to San Antonio del Cobres with the car. That is Tyler taking pictures of them...he looks so small compared to the catcus.

Llamas running lose, but you can see the brown one has her dashing bandana on. We saw herds of llamas and donkeys on the drive.

The Salt Flats outside San Antonio.

The beautiful colored mountains surrounding Purmamarca. This is where we had to wait for three hours for a new rental car. We couldn´t have asked for a better, prettier place to have to wait.

Us and our Australian friends at the Argentina border at 4,500 meters high. People were starting to feel kind of ¨high¨at this point. We met these guys clear down south in Puerto Natales before we did the Torres del Paine trek, and we just happened to be on the same bus today. They are the funniest mates.

The picture below is our hostel in San Pedro. If you look real close the hostel cat is sitting on the roof. He is orange, so he is kind of hard to see.