This morning our plane to Salto was supposed to leave at 7:45 so we got up at 5 and a taxi picked us up at 5:30. The plane was about an hour late leaving and the flight was just under two hours so we got to Salto about 11. Renting the car took about an hour but eventually we were on the road.
The hotel where we are staying Legado Mitico is very nice.
As you may know Argentina has terrible inflation. It’s about 120% annually. Duke asked the very helpful man who checked us in about the best way to change money. If we used an ATM we would get the official exchange rate which is something like 347 pesos to the dollar. If you change your money on the street you get the black market rate which is 830 pesos to the dollar!
The front desk guy who spoke perfect English said “I know it’s weird but changing your money on the street is perfectly safe!” So that’s what we did. We changed $400 and came away with 3 ‘bricks of $1000 peso bills and a few loose bills.
By this time we were all very hungry. We hadn’t had anything to eat all day except the cookie on the airplane. So we found a restaurant on the main square. The tourist map we got at the airport said that the number one must do in Salta is to taste empanadas with a glass of Torrontés wine. We had beer instead of wine but we did order a sampler platter. It was all delicious especially the empanadas.
Since we had been up since 5am the next task was naps. Finally we sat in the lounge and played cards.
Later we went to the grocery store to get picnic supplies.
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