So it was our last day on this crazy 4 day trip and guess what, we woke up early again. Ok, not so early this time but still. We had an amazing breakfast in our hostel in Salta city, they had breads and croissants, different spreads, orange juice, tea, coffee, and cereal. Oh and cheese and ham, basically EVERYTHING.
So our first stop was San Bernardo hill. We made our way walking to the cable car that would take us up there. The view on the way up was just beautiful. We got to the summit and you could see the WHOLE city, it was breathtaking.
Up there you could also find this water falls all around, a handcraft market and a gym. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you heard right. At the top you had a gym, different kind of equipment and bicycles and a class going on. It was great, I thought it was an amazing idea to get people to exercise. People walk or run all the way up there so it’s a good exercise already.
I bought a bunch of souvenirs in the market for all my friends back here in London. I had to stop or I was going to buy the entire shop.
We then made our way down walking. We passed some houses with an Arabic architecture, it look like a posh neighborhood, but I really don’t know.
We kept walking towards the main square. On the way, we found the Saint Bernard Convent, the building has a colonial style and it was built at the end of XVI century. At the beginning it was a church dedicated to Saint Bernard but then they built an annex building next to it that worked as a hospital. Eventually the hospital stopped functioning as such and nuns were sent from Chile to settle here. Once they took over it became a convent. They then closed the door that used to be the entrance for the hospital and in its place the put a big door made of carob, carved by hand by the natives of the region.
Just around the corner, you have Saint Francis church, one of the main churches of the city. Most of it was built in the XVII, except for the bell tower that was built 100 years later. They have a Baroque style in colours magenta and ivory. They were declared Historic national monuments in 1941.
After this, we stopped for lunch, bought MORE souvenirs and some food.
We then went to the main square, Plaza 9 de Julio (9th July). Around it you’ve got the neoclassical Cathedral Shrine, the French style Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cabildo ( ex city’s town hall, now a historical museum) and the neoclassical Museum of High Mountain Archaeology.
Something that I definitely advice you to see, and please write it on your list, is the MAAM (Museo de Arquelogía de Alta Montaña) which houses artefacts from the Inca civilization, including the magnificently preserved mummies of three Inca children. The Museum of High Mountain Archaeology is dedicated to promote the most important archaeological discoveries around the region. The biggest exhibition is the “Niños de Llullaillaco” (children of Llullaillaco), 3 mummified children conserved by the cold at 6700 meters high for more than 500 years, on the summit of Llullaillaco volcano. They also found more than 150 objects that can be seen in the museum.
I don’t have any pictures of it because it’s not allowed. The museum is a it dark just to preserve all the objecs. You can learn about the Inca’s, their believes and how they lived. It’s a really interesting experience. Every one of the mummified kids had objects buried with them that showed how they dressed and their social class.
Hope you enjoyed Salta, almost as much as I did when I was there.
See you Thursday xx