News just to hand. I’m sitting in a café with wi-fi on the city square of Salta. I had to signal to the waiter to get the password, after which he seemed very happy to leave me to it. He seemed a little surprised when I asked for coffee, which I don’t particularly want but thought I’d better order out of courtesy.

Latest development. The coffee comes with banana pastry. Don’t mind if I do.

The weather is making me wish all my t-shirts weren’t at the laundry. Am I really in the foothills of the second highest mountains on earth in the depths of winter? I suspect an elaborate scam to part tourists from their dollars.

I spent yesterday in search of condors. The Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito (Canyon of the Condorito – a smaller, low altitude version of the bird) was set up in 1996 and is a little gem. If it’s anything to go by, Argentina’s national parks service is in good shape. The paths are good, the signposts are clear and I didn’t see a single scrap of rubbish during a six-hour trek. At the visitor’s centre a single ranger gave me a quick rundown on what I needed to know, cautioned me to be out by dark, and I was on my way. No fee, no gift shop, no snack counter. I walked across an open, undulating landscape made up of tufts of pampas broken up by outcrops of ancient, pre-Andean granite, copper green with lichen and sparkling in the sun. From time to time the path was scattered with hunks of pink and white quartz, and occasional slender streams snaked through the grass.

The weather was flawless. I trekked most of the day in a t-shirt, beneath a deep indigo sky and a bright sun. After an hour and a bit, a deep gorge opened up at the bottom of which was a green river, its stone slab banks peppered with round pools. You descend sharply to a bridge and climb equally sharply up the other side, amid gnarly trees and craggy boulders, but not before spotting three condors wheeling high in the sky. After traversing the hilltop at the other side of the gorge, you come to a balcony with a view that’s worth far more than the half an hour of scrambling and laboured breathing that it’s taken to crest the top. A wide valley of golden grass stretches across to another line of sierras, brown and wrinkled in the haze. In the distance, white houses dot the shores of a long gunmetal lake, above it a single striated cloud resembling a thunderbird. Immediately in front of the viewing platform, the gorge comes to a dramatic end, spilling into the valley in a clench of gigantic dragon claw ridges interspersed by steep streams with multiple waterfalls. The lair of the mighty condor.

I had about an hour to get up close and personal with one of these birds and sure enough, within ten minutes I spotted one sailing far below in a lazy circle of the bowl, unmistakeable with its white-topped wings, the end feathers splayed like fingers. It disappeared behind a cleft and a few minutes later as I strained for another view, what I assume was the same bird suddenly appeared less than a hundred metres away at my left, glided across for a good look at me, sheared off as it came at right angles, and did another lazy circle at my level before diving once again into the chasm. Curious creature, friendly bird, or complete camera tart? I suspect all three. In any case, it only pulled this trick once, and having said hello, or made sure I was only another gawping tourist, or whatever it was doing, it was content to glide in zig zags across the valley for the next half hour or so, and make occasional visits to a nest high amid the crags. I met a French-Argentinian couple on the trek who told me of getting similar visits from the birds while trekking in the Andes, and of paragliders being accompanied by sociable condors.

Apart from this the only other wildlife I saw were a couple of birds with a bright orange breast which are apparently long-tailed starlings, known in Spanish as loica, and some bigger birds. I did see a sign warning what to do if you encounter a puma and took pains to decipher the Spanish (wave your arms, apparently, and don’t trek alone) but didn’t have to use the advice. The park is also home to some guanaco, a smaller version of the llama introduced in 2005 after disappearing from the area a century ago, and a lot of red foxes, who are known wonderfully as zorro colorado.

I had about an hour back in Cordoba - just enough for a quick shower but not unfortunately for a change of clothes – or rather I wanted to reserve my last clean set for this morning - before getting on the 13-hour bus to Salta. The buses truly are amazing. This one left at 10.15 and after a reasonable night’s sleep on the almost fully reclining seat, I awoke to a snack pack handed out by the conductor and an urn dispensing unlimited coffee. Then I sat back for a few hours enjoying the view of scrubby forest that variegated from reddish yellow to olive green, with a series of ridges fading to blue in the background, as we made the final run into Salta. The only possible fly in the ointment was that I was seated next to four English lager louts who cracked cans of beer as soon as the bus pulled out and were loudly reminiscing about their exploits in the clubs of Buenos Aires as we burrowed into the night. I had picked their nationality the second I’d spotted them on the platform (and was briefly tempted to yell ‘Viva Thatcher!’ and run off to watch the consequences), and was ready for a night of shouting and chundering. But lo and behold, half an hour into the journey two of them had pulled out books (one of them was Crime and Punishment), the other two were lost in their iPods, and they were quiet as mice for the rest of the trip. I almost felt like congratulating them.

What a relief it is to be in a country where the people are completely relaxed about photographers, instead of the oppressive mix of suspicion and officiousness that you encounter everywhere in Australia these days. Want to take someone’s photo? They’ve very happy to oblige, without the clowning about and racing to get into the frame that you encounter in some other countries. Take pictures in a museum? No problem. Set up a tripod in a world heritage listed church? Go for your life. The only objection I’ve had was from a church attendant who pointed out (as far as I understood it) that it was prayer time, was incredibly polite, and allowed me to take one more. Nice people.