When I first turned up in Salta I was a little disappointed; I’d heard so many great things about the city that during the first few days I thought to myself, “Is this it?!” However, I’ve now started my third week here, and the town has really grown on me - almost everyday I discover new parts of it! I now rate it up there with Mendoza.
Spending time over the last two weeks with my friends has been great, but today John will head up north, and Helen has already been gone a couple of days so now I’m feeling a bit lost without them. 
On the up side I’ll be able to get back to working on my Spanish now.
I’m planning on staying in Salta another week, before heading up north. I’ve heard some great things about Purmamarca, Tilcara, and Iruya. In truth, I’m trying to stall leaving Argentina for a long as possible because I like it here so much, and I’m not sure what I’ll find up north. Perhaps, I’ll take John’s suggestion of spending some time in Bolivia and Peru for a while then returning to the sanctuary of Argentina afterwards.
The news reports from Bolivia are worrying, and more so is reading the thorntree forum about it: there are stories of protesters, riot police, road blocks, threatened military coups, dynamite attacks etc, mostly centred around La Paz. Thankfully I have a friend currently travelling through the country so I’ll hopefully get some first–hand information from him. It could be another 2-3 weeks before I reach the border so maybe the situation will have calmed down.
