Salta and the Tren a las Nubes

Salta
We had two days in Salta - one of the best preserved colonial towns in Argentina. We arrived early evening and began our stay with a stroll through the main plaza with its ornate pink cathedral. And thanks to Lonely Planet we found a great restaurant with very delicious beef.

The following day we explored the city - it's not huge and is easy to do on foot - and by cable car to get good views down onto the city.

In the evening we enjoyed another great meal, this time a bit further out in more of a locals restaurant, where we shared a portion of filet mignon which was more than enough for the two of us!

Tren a las Nubes
On our last day in Salta we had pre-booked tickets to take the Tren a las Nubes up into the Andes. This is a tourist train that only runs on Saturdays, so we had carefully planned our trip to coincide with this. We had to be at the station by 6am and we set off at 7am - and we steadily climbed up to 4,200m way up in the Andes.

As the train chugged up the tiny tracks, we were served snacks, and were given information about the places we passed and what to look out for. There were of course numerous photo opportunities and the weather behaved for us, with blue skies and sunshine. We started out in lush cloud forests and then gradually the trees and bushes diminished leaving only rocks and cacti, and eventually only rocks. We got some great views of snowy peaks over 5,000m, and even I got quite excited about the engineering involved in building a railway track in this terrain - including a viaduct at 4,200m at the end of our journey, near the Chilean border.

We took the bus down, arriving back in Salta at about 9.30 - it would have taken two more hours to go back by train. A very long day, but worth it for the experience!