Finally, we where to go down from the high altitudes of the Altiplano. We made it down a steep road with hundreds of serpentines and stopped in a pitoresque village. We decided to go the best restaurant, part of a fancy hotel, and spoiled ourselves to a great meal in the great setting of the hotel.
Subsequently, we started to discover the Argentinian police, who after we had asked them that we had heard campervans were required to have all sort of emergency equipment on board (fire extinguisher, triangle, vests, etc.) simply said they wouldn't know either ...:-). After a few hours we arrived in Salta where we had heard of a campsite that was used by travellers like us. And indeed, we found almost 10 different campervans on this site, ranging from the converted VW truck to serious MAN second hand army
trucks. Surprisingly, most of the groups were actually Germans. But we also met for the first time a family traveling. They were from Belgium. The kids and the parents got splendidly along with each other and we extended our stay in Salta to an entire week - spending most of the time exchanging experiences about traveling with children. The only bad moment during the week was when two youth jumped over the fence of the camp site, picked up Lili and my bike, threw them back over the fence of two meters and cycled off. All this with the children watching and Kate being only 50 meters away. The subsequent police chasing of the thiefs obviously did not yield anything. It was sad since this mountain bike had served me over 20 years (but I was also happy to have an excuse to buy a new one when we went back home).
From Salta we left to drive through the Argentinian Cordillera. After arguing for weeks whether we should have a riding holiday in Argentina we decided to settle for a half day ride and found Finca Anita where they offered for us to park the camper and go for the ride.
Finca Anita provided all sorts of amusements that could be found on a farm in Argentina: Gouchos, huge billy goats, wild horses, making cheese and tobacco plants. We spent a couple of days on the farm.
Afterwards we left for Cafayate, where our friends had given us a tip for a great lonely camp site in the mountains. We knew this was the end of our adventure and so we decided to stay out in the mountainous desert for a few days. But before going there we stocked up on food and wine. This is the amazing thing about Argentina: you stop in a tiny village in the mountains, the supermarket does not