Charlie usually goes to Salta twice a month for supplies for the restaurant. I had business to do in Salta so I decided to join him. We even closed the restaurant so we could stay the night in Salta. The road between Cafayate and Salta is absolutely beautiful as you go through the Quebrada de las Conchas filled with gorgeous red rock formations, a gentle running river, and various other colors of greens, yellows, and purples thrown about. Even though it is beautiful, going to Salta is not my favorite way to spend a day. If we want to go and come back in the same day (when we don’t close for dinner), we leave very early in the morning in order to make it to Salta when the stores open. Almost all of the stores then close for lunch at 1:00 p.m. until 5:00p.m, we have to get everything done before lunch., so it takes 5 hours to get to Salta and back and then we only spend a total of 3 hours doing errands... needless to say, it’s not the most relaxing trip.
This time is different, we get to take two days to finish our errands and maybe have a little fun in-between. At first, we tried to go to a see Harry Potter at the shopping mall movie theater, but it was only showing in Spanish dubbed (usually the new movies are done in subtitles). Since we were there to relax, we didn’t feel like struggling to understand what was going on. Then we continued to downtown to do a little shopping. Downtown Salta is insanely busy during the evening with lots of crowds and people standing in lines. Everything takes about 2 hours longer than you think it should, but we powered through it, almost unscathed with a new clothes washer and, yes a TV - our first! After, returning from shopping, we decided to try a new restaurant that some of our customers recommended. We found the house converted to a restaurant on Balcarce. We were led upstairs to the dining areas and were directed to a very small room (like a kids bedroom), with another table of 2 gentleman and 3 more empty tables. We were happy that every time someone walked in to sit down, they asked to go some where else because it felt like we were all dining together! Other than the cramped atmosphere, everything else was great. The food was excellent with different menu usually not offered in Salta. We had wild rice, baby sprouts, and a few other shocking (usually not seen in NW Argentina) items. The evening finished with dessert of baileys on the rocks and the volcan (chocolate cake that oozes chocolate syrup when you cut in to it- yummy!).
The next day we went to one of my favorite stops on the Restaurante Colorado “errand day”, the fruit and veggie market (CoFrutos). This is the mother of all farmers markets! A huge warehouse filled with vendors of everything from oranges, lettuce, peppers, to spices and beans. We always by our bulk veggies here, straight from the farmers where we get to pick the quality and haggle down the price. We head out of town with our usual stop for some empanadas and a gas re-fill at the YPF (they have the best empanadas..) and start our return trip home to unload and get ready for dinner at the Restaurant. All in all, a great trip, but as always, we are very happy to be home and certainly exhausted.
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