22ND - 26TH APRIL

We were stopping overnight in La Quica, the town on the Argentinean side of the border pretty much by default. If we’d continued on to Salta straight away we’d have arrived there in the middle of the night, and we’d also read that the surrounding scenery was stunning and not to be missed by travelling on a night bus. In contrast to Bolivian border being the most chilled we’d seen since Laos, the Argentinean side was a real pain in the arse. We had to queue up several times at different places and then finally had to open up all of our bags to be thoroughly searched. It’s understandable I guess given the amount of drugs smuggled out of Bolivia this way.

We’d booked a hostel which in typical Argentinean fashion was just fine, and we immediately headed out to the bus station to book our onward tickets, and then check out the town. Bus tickets secured

checking out the town took all of five minutes and we headed back to our hostel. We didn’t have a kitchen so consulted the Lonely Planet for places to eat. After a brief look we decided that none of the places looked very veggie friendly, and were about to settle for take-away pizza when we spotted a little bar across from our hostel and decided to go and have a beer and see whether they had any food.

It turned out that they were only serving sandwiches, but the broken Spanish / English conversation between us and the very friendly owner resulted in some veggie sandwiches being prepared for us. We weren’t expecting much so were pleasantly surprised when two huge hot cheese, egg and salad subs appeared. Appetite satisfied we settled into the bar to watch the big screen TV which seemed to be playing music videos. After a while the owner came and changed the DVD and to our huge amusement he put on