january 19 - 22

highlight of the day was the visit of the small museum of modern art, which presented interesting contemporary argentine art. after that we went to parque san martin, to avoid noise, traffic and heat. we found a nice and shady place unter a big palm and rested. in the evening we joined a summer festival, with music and comedy, what was very peaceful and entertaining though we couldn't understand a lot.

we had our last day in mendoza and didn´t visited a vinery yet !!! after another repacking of our stuff, we were heading out of town to our well known "alta vista" vinery by bike. we had had a 12 bottle-box of the malbec premium in germany from our winedealer, mr. potthoff, and we liked it a lot. good oportunity to see, were it comes from. cycling in big argentine towns is not a real pleasure, cos there is a lot of traffic and the air is polluted by the exhaustion of all the vehicals. our tiny map lead us about 20 km out to the panamericana and not to our prior destination, so we did a lot of extra kilometers until we arrived at alta vista. the gate opened but the next guided tour was full and the following tour was to late. bad luck, but we took a photo to proof we were there.we bought nice stuff for picnic in parque san martin, our favorite place in town, and were lucky, when we arrived for lunch.we had excellent gnocchis and salad. after that we had to return to the hostel, to store our bikes and our luggage. hope it is a save place !!!

at 8:30p.m our bus to salta left, only half an hour to late, but it didn´t matter on a 18 hours bus ride. as we arrived at 2:00pm in salta it was raining cats and dogs. so we decided to have lunch before searching our hostel. we had some excellent tortillas in a small restaurant close to the terminal. the rain stopped, when we finished our meal and we went to the hostel "the cottage". a recommended place in hostelworld.com. that's why we had made a reservation, hoping for a better accomodation than in mendoza.

but another disappointing place was waiting for us. though we booked a double bed-room with private bath, it was a tiny room with bunkbeds and mould, especially in the locker. the bathroom was interesting as well. flushing the toilet gave a fountain, that flooded the floor. they had to call the plumber to fix it. on the ceiling a palmsized, dried, obviously dead butterfly was hanging, who dissappeared when we entered the room after plumbering. dont want to know, what happened. weather was quite good, dry and almost sunny so we did a little excursion to mount san bernardo. we climbed the 1070 steps in high altitude (salta is 1200m above sealevel), so we were a little bit slow. at the top was a nice park with a good view over the city. the teleferico took us back to town for 4 pesos each and we were searching for another accomodation, to stay a bit longer in "la linda" salta. we made a reservation at the three sisters for two nights after examining the rooms. strolled around the city and were lazy after lunch. poor eva got a cold, maybe of the chilly night in the bus.