Zombie Hunger

Salta – 21-04

We arrived to Salta by hitchhiking with two friendly government workers. We knew nothing about the city, but the two guys told us it was really truly “beautiful” and that it had the best empanadas. We seriously thought it was going to be like another big city in Argentina, but it was different than all our other experiences. The place was  absolutely gorgeous and had many interesting things to do, like climbing a mountain, visiting the lively market and exploring the many museums. Unfortunately, metal-wise, there wasn’t much that was interesting… there was only a few “metal” shops which were more Japanese animation bootleg shops with 10 metal CD’s. Did I mention that “metalheads” in the north of Argentina love Japanese animation? We even saw people dressing up in characters in a park. WTF!

Of all things metal, this is the CD we saw the most often... a deluxe re-issue of Black Sabbath’s Dehumanizer! (???)

So back to Salta, here is what makes it so beautiful:

The main square with a General Guemes statue (his remains are in the town’s Cathedral)

San Francisco church, one of the highest churches in South America!

The gift shop on the side of the San Francisco church

The view from the San Bernando mountain, after climbing 1200 stairs!

An epic Spanglish moment with a beautiful sunset

As you can see, Salta is a super catholic town, but what makes it fascinating, is that it has a secret-society past; the religious buildings are filled with ancient Masonic symbols:

The Cathedral facade with the all-seeing eye

A square on the top left side of a church

A compass and other Masonic symbols on one of the doors of the San Francisco church

We also went to some pond, which had the weirdest, ugliest looking ducks we’ve seen. They looked like a cross between ducks, pigeons and condors, and swam by bringing their necks forward like pigeons do for walking! Really weird! Here are some photos, be sure not to be eating while looking at them, or you will surely lose your appetite.

The pond of ugly ducks

Ugly duck #38

Ugly duck #15

They were kinda cute when you fed them though, as they wiggled their tail happily like a dog:

Now, to regain your appetite, here is some of Salta’s culinary gems:

Locro – a hearty Andean soup consisting of a corn/carrot broth, a piece of osso-bucco, a piece of meat and some pieces of tripes

Some fresh goat cheese (this 500g piece cost us 5$ only!)

Otro Mundo beer. A nice strong ale with a bitter flavour. Ok, this is actually a Buenos Aires beer, but we saw it everywhere in Salta for some reason!

And we had some extraordinary empanadas at the Patio del Empanada, which was conveniently located close to our hostel:

A lady preparing some meat empanadas

The pot of gold (empanadas). You see here 1 empanada de choclo (corn), 2 de queso (cheese) and 3 de carne (meat)

Inside a meat empanada. The trick here is to not cook the meat before putting the empanadas inside the oven, that way they keep all their juices inside the empanadas and stay moist. Perhaps that could be incorporated in our way of doing “tourtières”! They also add some onions, green onions and tiny pieces of potatoes. So good!

Anyway, it was also the Santa Semana when we were in Salta – the Easter week. We thus had to try some Easter food; holy bread and holy chocolate (which was sold for 1$ on the side of the street):

The easter egg had some candies inside... but they weren’t really good. The holy bread tasted pretty much exactly like the buns we have in Canada.

San Salvador de Jujuy 24-04

To finish our trip in Argentina, we decided to make a stop in S.S. Jujuy to use its hot springs (Termas de Reyes), located at about 15 km from the city. They are situated in between tall beautiful mountains, and the water reaches 50 °C! Unfortunately, it wasn’t in some small lake or anything, we had to swim in a pool, but it was still really nice. Apparently, the Incas used to travel there to heal themselves, in old times:

The amazing scenery of the place!

François relaxing on the pool side, reading his new Pappo book

The pool, which cost only 3.25$ to enter (whole day)

And to finish this chapter on Argentina, here are our metal scores:

Thanks for helping us with some of those, Mr. Baphometal!

And here is an ultra special gift for all of you, a compilation I made of some great Argentinean bands we discovered during our trip, from the 70’s to now!! Enjoy!!! (I think most of these bands – if not all – are from Buenos Aires)

DOWNLOAD Argentinian Metal Compilation here!

1 – PAPPOS BLUES – Sucio y desprolijo
(1973 – Volumen 3)

2 – DRAGONAUTA – Muerte Y Destruccion
(2010 – Cruz Invertida)

3 – V8 – Si Puedes Vencer Al Temor
(1983 – Lucando por el Metal)

4 – HELLION – Leyes
(1984 – Hellion)

5 – THOR – Transilvania
(1985 – El Pacto)

6 – BLOKE – Antes del Fin
(1984 – Demolicion)

7 – HERMETICA – Craneo Candente
(1989 – Hermetica)

8 – RETROSATAN – Esperando El Final
(1987 – Grito Mortal demo)

9 – CANCERBERO – Lucifer
(1986 – No Juegues Con La Muerte demo)

10 – NECROPHILIAC – No Way To Hide
(1990 – Dark Life demo)

11 – INFERNAL CURSE – Morbid Sorrow
(2010 – The Evil Is Not Dead… It Waits To Be Reborn)
Cheers!