de salta al saltar de jujuy

so,we did take off to jujuy at 1030, and the bus was on time, which is nice. it was a pleasant bus ride (as far as pleasant ca go for a bus ride) and where we met 4 middle-aged argentinian women who wanted to share guide with us, so we read the lonely planet about bolivia while they read the "petit fute" arnaud had brought along (one of them actually spoke french, so we had a little discussion) We then got out of the bus and they stayed there. farewell.
After this 4 hours bus ride (for 70 km) we were in Jujuy. it's a pleasant little town, andine-like but has not much to offer. We rushed from the bus station to the hostel advised in the routard. it was a gloomy little place, but we had a room for the three of us which seems to happen rarely, so we were pleased. it was also clean and the towels smelled like soap. all good :)
we then proceeded to lunch, and after nearly getting killed by one or two cars while crossing from one "quadra" to the other, we got to the place proposed by "The Book". it was a nice little restaurant and had a local band playing local music. all "muy tipico" and entertaining. I had a llama steak which is real good (you couldn't tell looking at the beast). The afternnon was spent drinking quilmes in the park, going to the "museo de la policia" (it was free and quite entretaining - foetus in jars, guns, uniforms....well, good to spend time) and looking at the various monumemts the town has to offer (iglesias, iglesias, iglesias, and townhall....) which are often quite funny to look at. we also looked for the car we wanted to rent for the next day - and it wasn't easy to find.
we finally did find a car to rent -from senor daniel- and waited in a littel cafe, playing couillon, for him to bring us the key.
the day ended in our gloomy room after having had some real good spear ribs in a restaurant that apparently opened only for us in a tae-kweado sport club!!! terrible!!! :))
in the morning we vacated our room and went to get the car. we had rented the car because north of Jujuy there is a "quebrada" ( valley) that belongs to the "patrimoine mondial de l'humanite" and a "saltar" (salt mine). it's indeed quite incredible. the hill's (up to 4170 m) colors vary from red to green, from yellow to grey. we spent the whole day in there, visiting every little village along the way ( and getting stuck on a national road 'cause the "gobernador" was inaugurating a school). To go to the saltar we picked up 2 argentinians hitchikers with whom we rode to the saltar the jujuy and back, talked about argentina, Arnaud's problem with the cops, chewed some coca leafs (don't worry mum, it's legal and nothing more than tea) and whom explained to us waht we needed to kmow about the saltar.
the saltar'amazing. take a desert, paint it in white and put mountains 4000m high and you should have something close to it.
we proceeded back to jujuy, dropped the hitchikers and tanked the car full (50 km before arriving, so we knew it wasn't gonna be entirely full, but look as if - detail of much importance).
in jujuy, we sat in a cafe (the same as the day before) and played couillon until it was time to give back the car. we did give back the car,paid, and everything was fine until the guy asked us how much we had tanked for ( we needed to give it back full) an arnaud said 43 pesos (which was right) but then kept on saying :
we tanked between leo y V. and the guy looked startled and asked us if we had re-tanked when arriving in jujuy. arnaud started loosing his tongue and finally said yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeees.....offffff cccccourssssse (en espagnol porsupuesto) - understand, we screwed the guy over for 50 km ( but as we already paid the "tourist" and not the "local" price, it wasn't much). francois and I were about to jump to his neck ( it was expensive enough as it was, we didn't need anymore fees) when the guy said it was ok ( althought we all think he understood very well he was being screwed). half an hour ago we had a (good) pizza, and we are now gonna go take the bus to "la quiaca" before crossing the bolivian border.
hope you're all very well. muchos besos.
C U.
ps:arnaud and I in the valley