The city of Salta does not have a whole lot that appeals to me, but the surrounding areas of natural beauty drew me to stay here as my final stop before leaving Argentina. One of the main attractions in Northern Argentina is el tren a las nubes (the train to the clouds), which unfortunately does not run during the rainy season, although it is now reopened for public use in drier climates after years of closure/refurbishment. The good news is that in the wet season (ie now) it is still possible to drive and see the bridges, viaducts, tunnels and the spiral tracks of this incredible train journey at altitude that leads to the Chilean border, which is something I was very interested to see. As many of you know, I am not normally a huge fan of organised tours, but for the sake of ease and as it seemed economically viable, I booked onto a few excursions from Salta and took some much-needed time off from planning things to do myself. To take the edge off making new friends on group tours, I had randomly bumped into Oron (remember him from Uruguay?) at breakfast in my hostel and he signed up for the same treatment; three days of organised fun here we come...

A good viewpoint is often a great way to start off your time in a city, so before the tours began we headed off to the top of San Bernardo Hill via the cable car for a panoramic view of Salta. For this we were joined by a group of three English boys on their gap year, two French girls they knew from their journey to Salta and an Argentinean girl from my room in the hostel. The hill offered some great views of the city and it was not until I saw it from up there that I realised how large it is.

That night we headed out to discover what the nightlife of Salta has to offer mid-week. It turns out the answer is an empty nightclub with 90s dance music and group of tourists dancing around like loons... particularly one blonde English girl who had been wanting a good old dance for a while! Maybe not the best night out I've ever had, but it was good to have a boogie again as it had been fa too long.

The next morning was a 7.30am start and I was regretting the previous night a little as I had really worn myself out on the dancefloor. At least the city of Salta itself is not at too high an altitude (just over 1,000m) so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. This first excursion was a trip to the town of Cachi via Parque Nacional Los Cardones, which is a national park filled with a variety of cacti. At one of our toilet stops along the way we met a young boy who belonged one of the cafe staff who had a very interesting toy - an empty packet of Marlboros, he seemed very content with pushing this all over the floor and then munching on it as his mother looked on nonchalantly. At another of our stops we found a small kiosk which was home to a stuffed armadillo, which of course, I could not resist trying on for size as a hat.

Throughout the drive to Cachi we were surrounded by absolutely stunning scenery as we climbed higher and higher up the mountains. It wasn't long before we passed through the cloud condensation and arrived into glorious sunshine. Once we got to the national park there were giant prickly cacti as far as the eye could see. Apparently they grow just one or two centimetres per year, so judging by the size of some of these bad boys they have been around for a very long time indeed. There were all kinds of shapes and sizes within one relatively small area, with two different species living together in harmony. There were even some cacti that had lost all of their needles and remained in place as a wooden shell with many many holes in from where they used to store water. The population looked dense in the distance, but not matter how far I walked the distribution seemed to remain sparse... a very deceptive sight.

We had been warned to watch out for various species of dangerous snakes and spiders that are known to live in the area. Although we didn't get attacked by any of them, we did get to see a black widow spider which is something I have been warned about in numerous places I've been to, but I have never actually seen one before. Rather than give this deadly spider a wide berth, everyone crowded around to get a closer look and get some photos - myself included. The guide seemed a little nervous at this prospect and hurried us along with a line that I do not understand to this day "Come on, let's go... the rainforest is coming!"  Answers on a postcard if that means anything to you; our whole group was perplexed, but returned to the minibus as the prospect of the rainforest coming to get us was more scary than being faced with a black widow spider.

Before arriving at our final destination of Cachi, we stopped off in a neaby village called Payogasta for a spot of lunch. The setting of this restaurant was beautiful as we were surrounding by various mountains of different shapes, colours and textures. Once we were done we set off for Cachi, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I am not sure what I was expecting from this small town, but I would say the highlight of this particular excurison was going to see the cacti in the national park rather than being a big adventure to Cachi. In/around the main plaza there was a "market" aka one small shop, from which I purchased myself a nice bamboo flute, and a little playground for children which occupied most of our time. A stunning journey to get there, but I would not really endorse a stop in the town itself.

The following day brought with it another 7.30am start and a trip to the wine region of Cafayate, home to Argentina's best white wines. Once again the journey to the main destination of the trip was one filled with stunning scenery. This time it was all about rocks in the shape familiar objects; we saw a toad, a priest and the titanic amongst others. En route we also stopped off at a couple of gorges, one shaped like an ampitheatre and another which was a mission to climb up in my slippery shoes. In the ampitheatre I whipped out the flute I had bought the previous day and soon realised that I am not a very good flutist... I have to say it went down much better at lunchtime when I joined the entertainment duet to make the first Andean muscial trio to include a blonde girl with a pink flute (and potentially a deaf ear)!

As well as the stunning landscape we also stopped off to visit some llamas, who were very friendly and I even got a kiss from one and slmost managed to mount it. I had been warned that any attempt at trying to ride a llama would probably result in me getting a lot of llama stomach acid spat in my face, but fortunately I escaped unscathed.

We visited two different wineries in Cafayate, the first of which had an accompanying wine museum. The same guide (Fernando) that had warned us that the rainforest was coming the previous day was our guide again, and it turned out he was a jack of all trades as he led the wine tour too. Other than the tasting of the most tiniest glasses of wine ever, the most exciting part of the tour was getting into a giant wine barrel via the hole for cleaning access. I have never been in a wine barrel before, and was surprised to be able to fit through what looked like a very small hole.

I was a little bit disappointed with the miniscule wine tasting we got to do on this day, but the visits to the gorges went a long way to make up for this. This was also the day that I met a couple of very entertaining Aussie lads (Guy and Kiel) and Kiel's Kiwi cousin Kurt... all recovering from a rather heavy previous night, and warming up for the next one. These boys provided me with a lot of entertainment on my final night in Salta, including a naked ping-pong match (no, not a la Thailand), and a very well choreographed dance to Daft Punk's Around the World in the reception area in which I joined in of course. Although I think the less said about that night the better...

The third and final organised tour was a 7.00am start and the big one... "Backpacker to the clouds"; the one I had been looking forward to and came to Salta for. Of course, something went wrong: as it is the wet season, there are many landslides that occur in this region... if you're unlucky one will happen to block off the road that is needed to access and view the tracks of el tren a las nubes. However all was not lost, we were still going to be able to get to the mini-salar (small salt flats) as a trial run before we hit the big one in Bolivia, and also we were going to visit the seven-coloured hill.

During our journey there was a rather unpleasant smell coming from one of the wheels on our bus, basically it was a result of too much friction on the brake and we stopped for ages whilst Fernando (yes, the same guide again) turned his hand to being a mechanic. Once things were not looking too good out came the mobile phone, but in the middle of nowhere on the mountains of Salta there is not too much signal about, so off we set again with our wheel back on and our fingers crossed. Shortly before all of this drama we had been dropped off for a "jungle walk". I am not sure if Fernando has ever been to a jungle, but in my experience there is no tarmac road running through the middle, maybe if I could also fix cars, knew a lot about wine, understood tectonic plates etc then I could get myself a job as a tour guide here. Speaking of Fernando's many talents, he is also a good tango dancer and I had a quick lesson with him and I think I managed to sufficiently impress him with my poor tango skills :s

After the highly dangerous trek through the "jungle" we continued along the road until we reached the mini-salar. As an experienced salt flat photographer Fernando inspired us with various poses, but we managed to come up with a few of our own unique ones too. There is a larger selection of these on my facebook photos, but I've put a couple on here as a taster for you all. It has been a long time since I suffered from too much sun exposure, but to go to the salt flats without any suncream on is not a great idea as an English girl and I ended up with rosy cheeks and nose! (Note: replace rosy with bright red and you'll be a lot closer to the truth).

On the way back to Salta we stopped off in Purmamarca which is the village next to the seven coloured hill and also trekked up a nearby mountain to get a good view. For those of you who have never climbed up a mountain when you start at an altitude of 2,500m, let me tell you... it is not easy on the lungs! But it was all worth it for a great feeling of achievement and a fantastic view of the whole village and the star attraction. When we got back down and everybody was feeling tired from a long day, it was time for my tango lessons!

That evening in the hostel was my last in Argentina. Time for a quick haircut (my first of this trip) at the only place that was open for business at that time of day - an old man who usually cuts boys' hair and had never touched blonde hair before! We had some interesting conversations and he made lots of jokes with me, which I think I understood. Then back to the hostel where there was a BBQ, with lots of meat and even more beers with all my new friends. There was some after dinner entertainment in the form of folkloric music and dance. This time my flute was nowhere to be found, but Oron and I did get pulled up by the dancers to join in the fun. Once dinner and dancing was all over and done it was time for a few games of pool before the Around the World dancing-fun began...