Leaving Chile and entering Argentina.

Having a milanesa in Susques

The first “town” in Argentina after crossing: Susques.

The great salt lake “Salinas Grandes” up in the Andes

Driving down to the Quebrada de Humahuaca

Bye bye Chile.  As it is not possible to take our rental car over to Argentina, we had arranged with our travel agency to have a private transfer from San Pedro de Atacama to Salta in Argentina. Our driver, Dionisio, picked us up at 9 am and our first stop was at the border station on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama. We then drove up to pass Jama and had a pretty complicated procedure to be able to cross over to Argentina, wichinreminded us a bit of the Mexican border when we traveled in 2000. We drove through beautiful landscapes mostly lying above 4000 meters, our highest point being at incredible 4820 meters! We made a stop in the first village after the border called Susques, very authentic with its indigenous population. We ate a milanesa, a kind of sandwich with a thin slice of meat with and egg, lettuce and tomato. We then passed a huge salt lake "Salinas Grandes" of 525 km2 with 0,5 m thick Salt layer. After a long drive on a high plateau we descended through an impressive gorge, Quebrada de Humahuaca, which then became wider, greener, with more and more settlements (we are supposed to come back here later). We also passed Pumacarma and the Hotel Manantial del Silencio where we will stay. We arrived in Salta at 6:30 pm, i.e. our trip took 9,5 hours in total. Our hotel is Solar de La Plaza, Room 45. Dinner in the Restaurante La Leñita with a big Bife de Chorizo, a kind of thick sirloin steak.