We stayed in the only hostel in town and luckily it had a fire place in the 'lounge' (there was nothing else in there) to help to keep us warm.
On Sunday morning, we got up and went for some breakfast - an amazing cheese toasty giving us our first taste of the local cheese and it was delicious!
We then went for a stroll around the village which was tiny an consisted of only a few blocks. But it was so up and down hill, and because of the altitude we were out of breath walking within seconds. We broke the walk up by making the obligatory stop at the chocolate factory and sampled a few of the specialities, again delicious!
Just outside the village, there was also a natural salt and rock pool called 'A Las Minas del Sal y Yacubiana' which is apparently pretty famous. We took a walk over there and the scenery was so colourful with the rocks different kinds of yellows, oranges and reds. We spent a quite while there taking it all in and taking copious amounts of photos.
After our lovely Sunday stroll we finally gave into the real reason we had come to Salinas - to eat! So we headed to the local 'Mama Miches' which is a cute family run place selling only local foods with Mama's photo on the menus and up on the walls. We ordered a carton of red wine and a platter with samples of all of the special cheeses and meats that sounded delicious.
When it arrived, we realised we had been given the gringo special of stale bread, hard cheese and meat which was dry at the edges, not so delicious! An Ecuadorian couple at the table next to us had ordered the same thing and everything on theirs looked so fresh - jealous!
After trying to eat around the stale bits, we were officially underwhelmed by the food so we ordered another carton of wine to drone our sorrows. By the time we left Mama's we were pretty drunk, apparently drinking in altitude makes you get drunk ALOT faster!
xxx
