Apparently the hostels are only going to get worse in Bolivia...

I'm officially fed up with the Argentine bus journeys. It's not so much the distances that are a pain but the buses regularly being late (2 hours is standard), the food being rubbish and the buses often freezing cold. Complaints aside, I did arrive in Salta after my 18 hour journey and immediately headed off on a trek I had booked.

The weather wasn't great, but the trek was pretty nice. About 8 hours up in some of the forest not too far from Salta. I was in a group with an Argentine couple and our guide. The packed lunch was good and although the whole day was in Spanish, it was a good chance to practice. The hiking was not very difficult and we went at a much slower pace than with our enthusiastic Peruvian guide when we were in Mendoza!

Unfortunately the hostel we're staying in at the moment is pretty shocking. I think we were a little bit spoilt with our hostel in Mendoza which was wonderful, but this place is pretty dodgy (for want of a better word). It's cold, neither particularly clean nor friendly and I'm not entirely convinced by the security measures in place (although, Salta doesn't really seem like a dangerous city).

We went into town this morning to get breakfast (I turned down the croissant covered in ants in the hostel) and to watch the Murray match. We found a nice bar with a few other Brits and a good TV where we spent a few hours. Just as Murray won and I went to pay I realised I had left my passport (and a few other items of importance) on my bed. I went into minor panic and ran back to the hostel, aware that I hadn't been overly convinced by the security of the place. Arrived back in my room and couldn't see my passport and so proceeded to strip all the sheets of my bed (continuing with the theme of mild-panic and overreaction) before marching off to the reception declaring that my passport had gone. Just as the poor girl was calling her boss I had another look in the pillow case to find it exactly where I had left it... Panic over, although I think the combination of Murray-related tension and the passport saga may have given me a hernia.

Whilst the hostel is a bit dodgy, there is currently a group of 6 of us travelling together, which makes the experience significantly more bearable. The towering inferno of flames that set off in the oven as we took out our pizza (which we then dropped on the floor to prevent our eyebrows being singed off) was even rather amusing. We're off horseriding on a ranch for the day tomorrow which will no doubt bring with it more interesting tales.