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Published: October 3rd 2011
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Finally, we got to Salta. We found a room at a place called El Alcazar. Pretty good really – reasonably priced and comfortable. We spent a couple of days there, and our luck seemed to suddenly turn around. One of the things to do in Salta – apart from eating a lot of excellent
salteñas – is to look at the museum with the dead Inca kids. They have three of them, and rotate them as each one starts to thaw.
We went down there to have a look inside, and were prepared to pay the money that day. As our luck normally runs, the bloke had gone out and had shut the place for 5 minutes. That decided us – we had no particular desire to look at more desiccated corpses - we opted to just have a look around.
On the edge of town, a 20 minute walk away, was the teleferico up to the top of the moutain. We got on it, rode it up to the top, had a look around, then rode it back down. There wasn't that much to see, but it was a nice view of the town, and it wasn't all
that expensive., Up the top there was a strange water park with concrete waterfalls and a whole lot of people wandering about looking at...I'm not sure exactly what. It simply seemed a nice park on a hill. We had a cheap lunch next to the worst man-made lake we've seen, and went back to the centre. By the time we got there the museums were shut. No great loss.
But lucky. Because Sunday was International Museum Day. Or something. Who knew? Well, the massive signs all around town that said “Sunday – Free Museum Day” would have given the observant a clue. All the museums in town were free, so we went and saw the Inca kids. They were, as expected, dried out corpses. Interesting, sure, but we were both very glad we hadn't paid admission. After we had completed our tour of Salta with a visit to a strange baroque church and a nunnery with a great door, we headed north.
Our next stop was
Tilcará. Getting there from Salta was easy enough. We went to the bus station and found a bus heading in the direction of La Quiaca. The bus headed off into the dusty
Argentian Northwest, and it, I don't mind saying, was a bit exciting. The
Quebrada de Humahuaca the area is called – a beautiful desert landscape of dust, sun, incredible colours and broken hills. The road north to Bolivia is littered with tiny little towns, each with their own appeal. Figuring out which of these towns to get off at was the next challenge, but in the end not a difficult task – we simply got off at the same time as the other couple of backpackers (apart from the two girls that had got off at the wrong Jujuy a whole back).
Once there we had a place to stay in mind, but we couldn't find it. The numbering system was completely random, or at least it seemed. It was as though you just picked your birthday, or your favourite year, as your house number. Discouraged, we went in to another so-called hostel, not far from the main square. I am fairly sure they thought we wanted to buy a room, not rent one for a couple of days. Far too rich for our blood. When we actually asked for directions, lo and behold, we found the place we
had originally been looking for.
Called Casa Los Molles, it was on the edge of town, a little bit of a walk up the hill. But it was nice. A bunch of quirky characters, but not in an annoying fippie way. Some friendly cats and dogs, and a generally good feel.
We were back in dust land – my most and Klaire's least favourite type of country. The way to make the most of dusty desert country is to get and and walk about the place so, with a bit of coaxing, we did. First we went just outside of town to see the Pucara ruins, and, our luck held – maybe it was International pre-Colombian Ruins Day – the ruins were free. The ruins were interesting enough – the position, though, was the highlight. With a commanding view over the valley, and covered with cacti, the ruins were a decent way to spend an hour or so walking around. The largest part of the ruins was in fact a monument built to the blokes that found the ruins.
The walk up to Garganta del Diablo was dusty, and hot, but beautiful. The trail slowly wound uphill,
climbing into the mutli-coloured hills. Scrubby plants, random donkeys, the occasional goat. And an incredible view back down into the valley towards the river and the town. The canyon itself was fantastic – a deep slash in the already broken landscape, complete with gushing whitewater and precariously clinging cacti. But....it cost 6 pesos to go right down into the gorge. We hadn't brought money, so we turned around and headed for home. I'm not convinced that a walk down into would have added that much.
For dinner there were no shortage of places to choose from, all offering similar fare at similar prices, and most threatening some sort of folk performance. We picked one at random, and it turned out to pretty good – the llama was great, if not quite as tender as a nice haunch of alpaca. Certainly the local dogs agreed – one of them would take the opportunity to come in whenever a customer would open the door, then walk up to likely looking prospects. The standard sitting-on-the-haunches-and-looking-sad trick would quickly progress to a more forward plonking-your-head-in-their-lap-affectionally trick. The staff would come out from the kitchen sporadically, and shoo the dog outside. Then the door
would open for another customer, the dog would take his opportunity, and the whole process would begin once more.
We awoke to Argentine Independence Day the following morning. All sorts of folk wandering about draped in blue and white, dressed as Gauchos, and being nationalistic. The marching band, clearly not worn out from the previous nights late practice, was in full swing.
We treated ourselves with a rare breakfast out at a nice little cafe called El Mate. We both ordered waffles, neither of us being entirely sure what they were, save that Americans eat them a lot in movies and there exists a maker for them. It turned out to be some sort of batter with ham and cheese in the middle – up there with a toastie. As we were leaving a couple of Australians that we had met the day before were sitting down to eat, and we offered them the recommendation. They seemed excited. Tilcará was an excellent little town – we headed north to see if there were others.
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