Arriving in Salta early on a sleepy Sunday morning the streets are deserted, the shops shut, the locals enjoying a lie-in. Our apartment is on the less salbubrious side of town and there is a slightly menacing feel in the air as we drift into town, unable to book in until 3pm. It turns out this is entirely paranoia, and the next day with people milling up and down and the roar of traffic, we cease half-expecting to have our throats slit. The traffic system at junctions is bonkers, whoever gets there first has right of way, until the waiting traffic gets fed up and barges in, waving and shouting.

Our apartment is great. We have a coat rack! A large fridge! An air dryer! Domestic bliss. We have it for a week although we will be spending two nights away, one going South, the other North. The only meds we’ll take away are lomotil, as buses and bowels don’t mix well.

Visit to art museum.

Doorways in Salta.

After lunch we took the cable car up a hill for a view of Salta from above, but we felt hot and tired. We wilted like steamed spinach onto a patch of grass in the shade and then retired down the hill and back to our flat for a siesta. Mad dogs and Englishmen…..

Yesterday we headed south though the Calchaquai Valley, past massive rock formations up to Cafayate, a really sweet little town surrounded by mountains.

In Cafayate Clive booked us into a decent bnb (£22) for the night, right in the central (and only) square

Burra beer – with a kick like a donkey. (8% alcohol).

Clive’s Spanish is opening all kinds of doors. Last night we drank the waiters recommended Malbec which tasted divine, cost 6 quid but sells for 35 in the uk. In Salta a waitress gave us two free glasses of wine because she said most English people don’t speak Spanish. Today we walked just 5km to a local waterfall but my legs told me we are 1700 meters high (Ben Nevis is 1345 m high – which is why this region makes wine – it’s high, sunny, and dry ) and even though we set off early the sun beat down on the dusty road and I walked slower, and slower, and slower. By the time we arrived the cavalry sat by the road, aka Jose, who became our guide.

He was from one of four families living around the mountains who do the guiding. He showed us a tree that makes Mate tea, which Argentinians are obsessed with to the extent they take huge flasks of boiling water even onto planes so they can drink it whenever they want. I bought a mate straw today – like my own personal tea strainer. He held my hand as we climbed up to the waterfall in ever steeper steps, such a sweetie. The price he asked? 4 quid. The thing is the guides get paid in cash, which obviously we added to for a tip. There are queues everywhere for the ATM’s at all times of day – long, long queues, we think because they can only get out 20,000 pesos (20 quid blue rate, 60 red) a day out, and because of inflation everyone wants their money out of the bank (you only need to look at my savings to see that economics is not my strong point so please correct me if I am wrong). So anyone working in an industry that pays cash is at a distinct advantage.

There is no way in a million years we’d have found the waterfalls without Jose, which although minuscule compared to Iguazú, meant we could take a much needed dunk in the icy cold water. This water is channelled into a canal and feeds the town of Calafate.

After trying the wine ice-cream (horrid) we sat waiting for our minibus to return us 200 km back to Salta.

Tomorrow we go North, to the hill of seven colours, lama stew, the salt flats, and Humahuaca, which sounds like a smokers cough.

Our guidebook warned us implicitly not to go near La Boca. We have even drawn a ring around it on the map to make sure we don’t stray into it ,American Werewolf in London style, and yet here we are, cycling through it’s streets, lined by houses made of corrogated iron, painted in a mishmash of colours, apparently born of necessity in the days when they were inhabited by immigrants just off the boats, boca meaning mouth of the river, and the only paint they had came from the port left overs.

Camilla, our guide for the day, scoffed at the idea we could be robbed in broad daylight although she conceded it may not be wise to be here at night. We have her for 6 hours, and it isn’t until half way through the day that I see we haven’t just hired her to show us the sites,but to pick a Porteno’s brains about vital questions we have like best restaurants, museums, sites to visit, and where to buy knickers (more of the latter later). She also gave us a potted history of Argentina from the perspective of a libertarian anarchist. If she had her way she’d occupy the cemetery, (although she says manifest rather than occupy, I don’t correct her as I have learnt from the daggers drawn looks Ana, our Spanish lodger, gives me when I do this) . She’d empty it’s crypts of coffins and make it a collective of bijou residences, as many of them are two stories high, and bigger than some peoples flats. She lives in La Boca with 8 other artists, musicians, and writers, 3 dogs and 3 cats. Their rent is half a million pesos a month – around £150 per person. She’s an artist, paints watercolours, which she doesn’t sell but barters. She wears nothing but vintage clothes, is a fount of political, literary, film and historical knowledge, and is all round fabulous. I ask why Eva Peron has just a little plaque in Ricoleta cemetary – she says that Peron, Evita’s husband, had her embalmed when she died at the shockingly young age of 32 from uterine cancer, and when a military coup overthrew his government a week later, the junta smuggled her embalmed body out of Argentina where she stayed drifting through Europe in hidden cellars to stop her becoming any kind of symbol for the Argentinians who adored her. By the time her body returned to Argentina Peron had remarried and rumours of black magic carried out on her body by his much loathed third wife perhaps explain her muted memorial. There’s an election coming up soon and one of the candidates (Javier Milei) is apparently a Trump like figure who against the odds might be voted in as a protest at the absolute mess the countries economy is in right now ( to our benefit, let’s be honest).

Later that day, my brain fried by the onslaught of information Camilla has machine gunned at me for 6 hours, we returned to out hotel and Clive started cursing like a navvy because of complications caused by an attempted fraud on booking.com a few weeks ago that meant he had to cancel the card he has booked everything on, and I mean EVERYTHING. I could hear music, drumming, and singing even with headphones on to drown out his shouting, which seemed to be happening just up the road from us. After scoping it out with my binocs on the balcony I decided to escape the shocking language and explore. I discovered the silent street we’d walked up not 2 hours ago now heaving with people, weaving about holding glasses of wine, children with balloons and candyfloss, a ballet dancer gyrating in a lighting shop window, drummers dancing wildly, smartly dressed Portenos sipping cocktails at drinks parties glimpsed through windows. I have no idea why, nor did the hotel. Where was Camilla when I needed her?

Ah, knickers. In case you are wondering, I am keen to replace my supply not because of any unseemly incidences, but because my pants are so darn heavy. I’ve gravitated towards them from the thong era of the 80’s through the M and S years, and these have just become my go-to’s. They-are-so-comfy. But I only have 15kg on some flights, 12kg if you take out the weight of my case, so every gram counts, and my case currently weighs 16kg. Interesting fact from Camilla while discussing pants – even she doesn’t wear vintage bloomers – one of the joys of BA is that there are no chain stores. No ubiquitisation of their streets. I won’t bore you with why but also there are no department stores. Devastating. So to buy lighter weight knickers I have to go into a tiny shop, where Clive cowers in the corner looking terrified, point at my arse saying “big bottom”, and they produce a pack of three size 4 ‘s. I love buying stuff abroad when I have no idea of the sizings so my inner troll can’t bombard me with derision. Anyway, doing a blind test Clive agrees they are MUCH lighter than my old pants (that’s a lie, he rolled his eyes and said he honestly didn’t think he could tell that much difference.)

Update : they are REALLY uncomfortable. I think I’m a size 5.