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Cerro de los Siete Colores
Purmamarca, Jujuy Province Don´t cry for us Argentina....
Leaving Iguazu, we stopped briefly in the sleepy little town of San Ignacio to see the ruins of the
"best preserved" Jesuit mission in north west Argentina. While the entrance to the former church was reasonably well preserved and the the detail in the facade was still visible, the rest is best described as ruins of ruins!
Twenty hours after leaving San Ignacio on the sweatiest bus imaginable, we arrived in the picturesque town of Salta. We stayed in a beautiful little colonial hotel right on the central plaza. We headed straight for the rather chilly, anthropological museum to see the mummies of the three Incan children found at the top of one of the nearby mountains. The cold had preserved the bodies perfectly, such that when we saw the body of the eldest girl (about 15 years old) we expected her to move at any second!
Hassled by tour operators from the moment we arrived, we quickly decided we weren´t interested in any of the tours on offer. Instead, we opted to head north on the road to the Bolivian border on local transport under our own steam. Unsure if we had
made the right decision to leave Salta so quickly after only two days (several hours of which was spent in the Correo trying to send a parcel - incredible how difficult a couple of jobsworths can make it. I almost felt we were back in Greece trying to organise our wedding with the town hall.....), we arrived in the beautiful, little town of Purmamarca.
Set in front of the amazing Cerro de los Siete Colores, the town almost looked purpose-built for tourists. We spent the late evening wandering around the town watching the effect of the sunset on the 7 colours. The next morning we headed up to a mirador with a view of the whole town to watch the sun rise and slowly light up the Cerro de los Siete colores. Neither of us were convinced we could see seven colours - you can make up your own minds from the photo.
We spent the next night in Tilcara, a rather less picturesque town with possibly the worst botanical garden we´ve ever visited - a rather bedraggled set of cacti and some of the limpest herbs known to man!
Moving on, we arrived in Humahuaca. Sadly,
Paso del Diablo
Day 1 - Salt Flats Tour I didn´t see too much of the town as I spent the day in bed with a fever. Fortunately, the hostel we were staying in was lovely and the owner very friendly, even sharing his mate with Stavi. Also Stavi was delighted to see the first evidence of vegetables in the whole of Argentina, buying a kilo of broccoli for 20p and a kilo of tomatoes for 5p from the local market.
Crossing the border
Although I still wasn´t 100%!,(MISSING) we decided to head for the border town of La Quiaca and cross into Bolivia. Another first for me - crossing a border on foot! From the border, we took what we thought was the bumpiest bus ride ever (little did we know what was to come!) to Turpiza. There was so much dust from the road, I´m not sure the bus driver could really see where he was going!
Turpiza and the Salt Flat Tour
We´d crossed the border with some others that we´d met in the hostel in Humahuaca and after a little wrangling, finally organised our trip to the salt flats. Our intial obstacle was a lack of money - we´d arrived in
a town with no ATM late on a Saturday evening, so no chance of getting any cash. Fortunately the tour companies seemed used to this and allowed us to pay on arrival in Uyuni, where they assured us there was an ATM!
Overall the 4 day and 3 night trip involved a lot of travelling in a jeep (we covered 800km of very rough terrain) with an added bonus of high altitude (we reached 4800m and we at no point were we below 4000m!). That meant we were VERY cold and we had a constant headache (coca leaves do not work for us!). Having said that the scenery was pretty spectacular and we saw all sorts of things-milticoloured lagunas where flamingos feast , volcanoes, thermal springs, lots of lamas and vicunas, strange stone formations, geysers and of course lots of cacti! We arrived at the salt flats on the final day after staying in a salt hotel (yes, it was made of salt) and we did not fail to try to take some (very touristy) 'fotos divertidas´ or fun photos. Unfotunately ours were not as good as we hoped! Not the most relaxing tour we have ever done but
Laguna Colorado
Day 2 - Salt Flats Tour still quite amazing if we forget the altitude side effects!
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