SALTA, ARGENTINA

Another one of the places I really wanted to see on my trip was the town of Salta, or more importantly the main tourist attraction there which is the "El Tren las Nubes" or Train to the clouds.

The train runs on Saturdays and leaves very early at 7.05am. So I had to be at the station by 6.30am for check in. I think this was the earliest I had got out of bed the whole trip. I made my way down to the station in the dark to find hundreds of people already there.

I found my way to my carriage and then to my seat. Luckily I had a window seat which was perfect for taking even more photo's. My seat was also facing forward and each group of seats had two forward and two backwards facing seats.

Across from me was two guys from Argentina who have been friends since the went to kindergarten. There names were Sebastian and Martin. The last person to join us was a travel guide travelling with some French speaking tourists.





The train travels about 300km through a series of mountains which it has to climb. They do this by making the train do switch backs where the train gets to a certain place, they move a part of the track and the train goes in the opposite direction to go up a small bit of hill before doing the same thing again to go up another bit of hill, sort of like a zig zag motion.








There was also a lot of tunnels through hills and even two sections where we went around the hill and back over the top of the track below across some bridges.




We had lunch on board the train and there was a carriage for snacks and drinks. The journey to the final destination was about 8 hours.




















The train went through a few different types of scenery, first was like forest, then some mountains, across a river, and then in the plateau there was desert.











Our final stop was at a bridge which was designed by the man that designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was designed and built in France and then disassembled and transported on ships to Argentina and then rebuilt at its current location. This was all done back in the 1930's and 1940's.








The bridge is at an altitude of 4220mtrs above sea level. This is the highest I have ever been while still on the ground. The air was very thin and you only had to walk a few meters to be out of breathe.



They stopped the train at the bridge for us to get out and walk around to take photo's. Some locals were there to sell hand made crafts and there was also a couple of Llamas there that we could have our picture taken with.



So then we all got back on the train and it was time to head back..... all the same way we came! We made one more stop at another very remote town which was at 3750mtrs above sea level.





The trip back seemed to take longer as we had already seen everything and had stopped taking photo's by then.



It was a very fun day and I thoroughly enjoyed it but was very glad to see my bed that night when I got back to the hotel at 11.30pm.....

The next day I spent the day having a look around Salta and went to the top of a hill just outside the city centre.

to get to the top I had to take a chairlift or as it is called here a telerifico...?!

At the top of the hill there is a park whith a man made water fall and there is a cafe and viewing platform.

PRES. ROQUE SAENZ PENA

When I mentioned to some people that I was going to Roque Saenz Pena the response I got was "why are you going there?" and a very strange look on their faces. When I told them that I wanted to go to the zoo there they were even more surprised. But my mum and dad always took me to the zoo when we went to different countries so we could see animals we wouldn't normally see at home.

So off I headed to the zoo by taxi! It was a little way out of town and when I got there I found that there was only one family there and me.

The first animals that I got to see were some very large snakes. I couldn't get very good pictures of them as there enclousure was a bit overgrown with grass.

I got to see Llamas in an enclosure with deer.




There was about twelve Pumas at the zoo.




I saw giant guinea pigs.



The zoo has about seven Sumatran tigers.



The black bear enclosure was a bit sad as the two bears share a space about the size of my old lounge room and the floor of the enclosure was concrete.


They had several South American Condors which are very big birds.


There was also some native rabbits.



I liked seeing a Toucan for the very first time.


But my favourite animal at the zoo would have to have been the last one I saw. It was not a native animal of South America but instead it was from Africa..... a giant Hippo!!!!!


he was very big and shared a enclosure with three giant guinea pigs. I was very worried for those guinea pigs as I was sure they would become dinner for the Hippo!


It was not the best zoo I had been to but I was glad I went to see it as there were a few animals that I hadn't seen before.

RESISTENCIA

After leaving the fantastic Iguazu Falls I headed further inland to a city called Resistencia, Argentina. I had heard that the city had over 300 public art sculptures and thought it would be a really cool thing to see. My bus journey was 12 hours and I arrived there the next day.
The city itself wasn't exactly a very exciting place and didn't really have anything else to do so I set about walking the streets to see these sculptures. There were sculptures of all different sizes, shapes and subjects.
Unfortunately some of the people in Resistencia don't really appreciate art and they find other uses for the sculptures like resting their motorbikes, pushbikes against them or even using them as seats while they wait for their bus!
I didn't manage to get photo's of all the sculptures but I did take quite a few pictures, how unusual....
So I just stayed two days here before moving on to a small town called Pres. Roque Saenz Pena.