Argentina weather

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    Salta is beautiful, and there is so much to see and to do in the surroundings. I visited before the pandemic and there were so many travel agencies in the city centre that you could simply go there and shop around and you were set for the whole vacation. You do not need a guided tour to visit the city, you can walk to most attractions.

    There are daily excursions that you can do with a guided tour, though, either individual, small group (to fill a car) or larger group (to fill a minivan).

    We personally spent just two nights in Salta because we did a tour of the Quebrada de Humauaca, and Salta was the first and the last night of the tour.


    I like the noroeste better than the south of Argentina. It is cheaper and it actually has a native culture with different ingredients and food, although most (local) tourists want milanesas con fritas, so they comply. You will be on a quest to find the best empanadas, or at leas the ones you like the most!


    The heat is very strong over there this time of the year, and I am not sure how the tourism will work around that. I suppose they will have to work around the heat issue in some way, as this is when Argentinians are on vacation.

    Salta is a great area to explore. Be sure to see the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology in Salta (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23496345.amp), with its macabre but moving display of the perfectly preserved child mummies.


    After that, my advice is to rent a car, drive to Cachi (stay overnight on the llama estancia?), go on up on an awful road through fantastic scenery to Colomé, and the highest vineyard in the world, Altura Maxima (3,111 metres)

    https://www.sommeliers-international.com/en/World/altura-maxima-gb.aspx#:~:text=Colomé%2C%20Argentina.,the%20slopes%20of%20the%20mountain.


    The Donald Hess Colomé winery has a nice hotel and restaurant.


    Return to Salta via Cafayate.   Finca Las Nubes is lovely, but otherwise, not much of interest in Cafayate.

    Finca las Nubes | Cafayate, Argentina | Attractions - Lonely Planet
    Located 5km southwest of Cafayate along the road to Río Colorado (it’s signposted ‘Mounier’), this small, organic and friendly winery has a fabulous…
    www.lonelyplanet.com


    If you go to Jujuy province, be sure to see the Quebrada de Humauaca.  It is a beautiful area of colorful mountains, dramatic rock formations, and Quechua villages.


    I agree with @serafina  that NW Argentina is extremely interesting and culture-rich.  It’s great that you can spend a couple of weeks there, @Bombonera .  Enjoy!

    We did a similar excursion a few years ago by bus and train (it means the person who would be driver can watch the awesome scenery without worrying about falling off the road). We liked Cafayate - perhaps because there was nothing to do other than enjoy the environment. (Edited to add...) This year we visited a similarly-sized place which was similarly lacking in things to do in Cordoba province (Alta Gracia) and we were done with it in about an hour. Perhaps it depends on one's mood when one arrives or perhaps the places give off different vibes... (Do people still say "vibe" these days?)


    If anybody is interested in astronomy, the bus from Cafayate to Tucuman stops outside the entrance to Observatorio Astronómico Ampimpa (http://www.astrotuc.com.ar/) and we booked in advance to spend a night there. A very interesting experience in so many ways - but we were out of season and the night was excruciatingly cold. No morning shower because although they had plenty of solar-generated electricity for the hot water, all the pipes were iced up! Highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. If freezing cold and eccentric astronomers are not your thing, just drive on by.

    Quote from bebopalula

    This year we visited a similarly-sized place which was similarly lacking in things to do in Cordoba province (Alta Gracia) and we were done with it in about an hour. Perhaps it depends on one's mood when one arrives or perhaps the places give off different vibes... (Do people still say "vibe" these days?)

    I have noticed the same about several "destinations" that I have heard mentioned locally. After the big ones (Iguazú, Perito Moreno, Bariloche area, Salta, Mendoza), less known names start to popup, like those places in the province of Córdoba. However, the places themselves are quite uninteresting and I understand they are a destination just to soak in in a different, greener environment compared to CABA.


    In most cases, you don't need to travel that far to get a house with a pool and some wood and fields around you.


    My list of uninteresting popular destination is mostly populated by those towns around Córdoba:

    Merlo, which is the saddest looking place of all and I don't get where it gets its fame, is basically the same city centre of any small-sized Argentinian towns, no architecture at all, several small shops selling craps, badly maintained, I think they even had paid parking on the street. Thumbs down from me!

    Alta Gracia: nice Jesuitic Convent in the middle of the town, but besides that, nothing to do see apart from the scenery outside of town.

    Villa General Belgrano: this is where they do the Argentinian Oktoberfest. It claims to be a German town, bus besides a line of carefully crafted-to-uphold-the-German-claim stores and restaurants, it is as German as Maradona.

    Sierra de las ventanas: this town has the remains of a really big Nazi hotel (https://www.sierrasdelaventana…club-hotel-de-la-ventana/) that is slowly being cleaned and made accessible to visitor. It is only by guided tour, it lasts one hour. Allegedly, people from Europe came here during European Winter for the healthy microclimate of the sierra. Apart from that, nothing worth to see.

    Córdoba: poor and dirty, we arrived on a Sunday and there were just homeless people drunk and lying around the main square. Everything was closed. The place was dreadful and we happily left even if we had a hotel night paid at a local hotel. It was absolutely horrific.


    There are some bits of the tour around Córdoba that are worth the visit for the scenery, though I can't remember a specific name (a short bit around Tanti, perhaps?) right now. We spent most of that holiday in the car driving around.

    We had a few thunderstorms yesterday afternoon which weren't forecast. Thankfully they were very short and localised....just a few blocks away it was dry.

    Lovely morning here. When I got up it was 6c and the house felt cold but it's now 14c calm and very sunny. :thumbup:

    These sudden changes or temperature is common in summertime, thanks God.

    Our most helpful aid is the south wind, which brings clouds first, later rain and then magnificent moderate sunny days.

    A thing almost not understand by people who lives in the Northern Hemisphere.

    They think that the most south you go, the most heat will be.

    The world is not just a symmetrical ball, where you can simple convert the seasons/weather by 6 months, I have learned!


    I like plants and I always asked for advice to my mother and uncle. However, since I moved here, they have been clueless. Whenever I try to "transpose" their advice to my location, they don't make sense. So far, the only advice I have heard here is that you do not plant or cut in the months that contain the letter R (so: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, septiembre, noviembre, diciembre). Basically, you do everything in the three winter months (June to August).


    Also, I still instinctively associate heat and summer with August, and when I am very tired I often mistalk about months/events based on my instinctive association that summer is in the middle of the calendar year and not across it.