Brown Bus Company & 22 hrs later

Buenos nachos (Good night.. err good evening is what I want to say but I don't know the Spanish term for "evening".

I think the last time we wrote I was obsessing about dulce de leche and yes I am still obsessing about it. I have not had it as much since we left BA, because I have been on a new kick.. EMPANADAS. We are in the North, district of Salta where the famous Argentina empanadas are made. We had been having them everyday either as a snack or as an appetizer for dinner they are cheesy goodness.

Anyways, the day we had our long bus trip we took a stroll around the area we were staying in BA we ate at a great little restaurant which specialized in dulce de leche and mozzarella balls. I enjoyed a dulce de leche cafe (which was literally a latte with a giant spoon full of caramel in my coffe!) it was pretty delcious but very sweet and I don't know the Spanish word for "half sweet". Tyson and I shared a basil, tomato, mozza sandwich and Peter and Marilyn had yogurt and granola. I am just happy pappy with the European breakfasts we have been having which consists of sticky sweet croissants and coffee. On our stroll we saw multiple doggy day cares (well we think that's what they were) I wanted to play with all the dogs but Tyson told me not to touch them even though they have owners. Another phrase I need to learn in Spanish "Can I pet your dog?".

That evening we took the bus from BA to Salta. The bus was a little late leaving and we were worried we were going to miss it but it turns out we got on the bus just fine. Our bus company we asked for was supposed to be "Micromar" or something of that name.. but we ended up with a bus called "Brown  bus" kind of funny since that use to be my maiden name. We all had a good chuckle. The bus ride was uneventful, except for one little hiccup where we think we had a flat tire but we are not  really sure it was about 3:00am when my bottle of water smashed on top of my head from the top rack of the bus and we kind of swerved for a little bit.. but we were fine and all the local people were fast asleep so I guess they didn't notice anything wrong. The food was mediocre.. I (Sara) sustained myself with crackers, cookies, and chips, while the others ate some breaded chicken and rice.. too sketchy for my taste haha. It was a pretty comfy bus, the seats reclined all the way so we were able to get some sleep. I never sleep very well on planes, trains, or buses but we survived just fine. Which is good because we have quite a few more buses to take along our journey.. none that are longer than 22 hours though!

We arrived in Salta at around 2:00pm and were pretty hungry so we went for some empanadas and I had a cafe latte which of course comes with a little dulce de leche cookie ... the Argentines got their coffee right and their sweets! We walked around the city of Salta not as big as BA but still has about 1 million people. We were all pretty tired from the bus trip so just walked through some cathedrals and had an early dinner by Argentines standards. They honestly don't eat dinner till 10:00pm at night. We have been trying hard to go to dinner around 9:00 pm as we are usually the first ones there so it is hard to see what restaurants are busy and good to go to. We had arranged for a private car to take us to El Cafayate.

Stay tuned for what we  saw along the way from Salta to El Cafayate and how we ended up with an Irish Argentinian driver! Pretty late here, so we're off to bed, and well finish catching up tomorrow.

Sara and Tyson