Photos

Salta in the NW of Argentina is one of the most popular places for foreign tourists - there's some amazing desert and mountain scenery nearby and the city itself is very attractive with lots of colonial and neo-colonial architecture. My other Argentina photos were also taken in this part of the country.

Salta is where I first saw one of the great icons of Argentina - a gaucho. Rather incongruously the gaucho was in a photocopying shop making some copies while dressed in his full traditional riding outfit (I assume it was a gaucho and not the shop owner in fancy dress).

This church is one of Salta's most famous landmarks - it was just round the corner from the hotel and I took several photos of it, this one being my favourite. This isn't colonial in origin - its late 19th century and like a lot of things in Argentina seems maybe more Italian than Spanish (though I could be wrong - I'm not an expert on Church architecture).

Because the streets were quite narrow the only way to get a lot of the church in view was to flatten myself against the pavement (the shop owner opposite seemed to find this amusing) and look up using the widest setting on my lens. As a result you get converging verticals which is sometimes a problem but I think the effect is one thing I like about this one.