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Salta, land of legends in Argentina
Salta is a beautiful zone located at the northwest of Argentina, with wonderful landscapes that atracts many tourists of the entire world. The name Salta is formed by two aymara words, meaning place for rest or beautiful place, that is why it is known as Nice Salta.
This zone limits with Bolivia, Paraguay and Chile at the west. For its geographical location, the weather is hot during the entire year, with temperatures that goes from 37 Celsius degrees as maximum and 3 Celsius degrees as minimum.
In Salta there are many touristic places like Cachi, Cayafate and the Valles Calchaquíes, a trip that is a must for the visitors to discover this beautiful and fertile zones, full of contrasts from the height of the mountains of more than 6 thousand meters to the deep canyons like Valle Encantado.
In Salta there are National Parks too, where the visitors can discover the many types of vegetation of this zone. Some of them are the Del Rey National Park, located at west of the mountain ranges of the zone, which has tropical vegetation and animals such as monkeys and toucans. There is also the Baritú National Park, located in the bolivian frontier. This park is still an unexplored land, because there is no roads inside it and the only way to access is navigating through Pescado river. In Baritú there are no wide terrains or valleys, only non-uniform mountain ranges and deep vegetation such as laurels and oaks and animals like tapirs, yaguaretes and red squirrels, which are the symbol of Baritu.
Salta has also the Los Cardones National Park, a place with dry climate and where is the famous Valle Encantado zone. Here the tourists can enjoy the mistery of old cave paintings and the archeological ruins in the hills; besides of trekking and other excursions in the red mountains of the surroundings.
Salta is rich in stories and traditions because of the diversity of its population. It is also a place with many curiosities, such as having the most countries and provinces in its limits and the higher and lower point of Argentina, in the Lluillaco volcano, with more than 6700 meters of height, the highest mountain of Southamerica and the Rivadavia plain, with just 300 meters of altitude.
In this zone there are many traditions of the quechua population, the first inhabitants of the sector. Some of them are the Pachamama festivity, or the celebration of Mother Earth on every August, the Carnival with its purification rituals like throwing water and other dances and ceremonies to Pachamama, that the villagers prefer to keep in secret from the foreigners.
One of the most important traditions of the zone is El Milagro, where the population celebrate with processions and prayers every September and adore the Virgin of Los Milagros and the image of Crucified Christ. The legend says that the images would had stopped a wave of earthquakes in the colonial time. This devotion shows the mixing of catholicism and local cults that coexist on Salta zone.
Travel to Salta and discover a magical world, where the past and present are living at the same time, with wonderful landscapes and beautiful traditions. This is just the beggining of the mistery of argentinean north.
Mariel Lizana, journalist
