We told the hotel front desk last night that when the tour came at 7 a.m. this morning to pick us up, they were to say we were unwell and wouldn’t be going. We are both happy and relieved to have cancelled out of our second day of uncomfortable travel. We sleep in a bit, and then take care of a few mundane chores, like buying toothpaste. We clearly did everything there is to do in Salta on our first afternoon here.

It rained all through the night, and it continues to rain all day. We find out later that yet again we have brought the rains with us. This is true desert, and they got 15 millimeters of rain over 24 hours in an area of the world that gets 50 millimeters in a normal year.

We decide to try to get back to Buenos Aires earlier than scheduled. Unfortunately, the evening flight tonight is full, but we can get on tomorrow morning’s flight, cutting our visit to Salta 12 hours short.

Another rainy afternoon, another movie. Only our 4th movie since leaving Canada in January. This time it is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. We pay our $1.50 each, and the two of us have the entire theatre to ourselves for the length of the movie.

We are tempted by the description in our guidebook of one of the restaurants in town, El Solar del Convento, and at about 9:00 p.m. we head there for dinner. Even here in provincial Salta, we are still too early, and they quickly finish the vacuuming before they seat us. I head to the men’s room, to discover a young man scrubbing the floor, still getting the place ready for the evening’s guests. Our meal is excellent, the wine is excellent, and the service is of course excellent.

We leave, glad to have at least one nice memory of Salta to take home with us.