Salta city life

So we moved south from our beautiful northern villages to Salta, a big, important city in the north which happens to be quite pretty as well. Salta is the second most populated city in the Northwest of Argentina and is located in the Lerma Valley region. Within Argentina it is one of the cities with the most preserved colonial architecture, and we stayed in a old colonial building with a balcony overlooking the city and beautiful large wooden rooms. Our lifestyle changed dramatically from doing nothing but eating meat, drinking wine, relaxing and partying in a little village, to doing nothing but eating meat, drinking wine, relaxing and partying in a slightly bigger city. These of course are very important aspects of Argentinian culture that we have to experience fully.

The wonderful hostel that we stayed in had a barbeque with lots of meat on it every dinner time and almost every meal out consisted of grilled meat. The average untrained non-Serbian stomach might even say it was too much but luckily for me the Argentinian diet is similar to the one back home. The only real question is not what we’re having for dinner, it’s what part of the cow we are having for dinner. And in Argentina the answer is usually every part. The standard parrillada mixed meat option brings you ribs, steak, kidney, intestines, blood sausage etc. and the Argentinians love it. We also had wine every day and considering it’s cheap as chips (usually about £2-3 a litre and generally cheaper than water) and delicious, it’s difficult to say no.

We also had a few city excursions during the week and an exciting adventure with the police. Before you jump to conclusions neither Monika nor I did anything illegal (were caught doing at least), but someone tried to rob our rental car and I had to spend an hour or so in the station with some of the nicest and flirtiest police I have ever met. Their main concern was clearly to find the culprit…

On our last evening in Salta we celebrated the first day of Hanukkah with our local Argentinian rabbi and his family (he invited us to his house). We went to the rabbi’s house, lit the first candle on the menora, sang some Jewish songs (or hummed along trying to look as Jewish as possible in my case), and ate some Jewish snacks.