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Tamed "wild" boar
Near Concepcion, Paraguay...Not v relevantI had great expectations of writing this blog and making it really cool and interesting... Now I've freezing cold hands and my eyes are destroyed. Ah but I'll give it a go. Please forgive my spelling.
We came back into Arg via Resistencia from Asuncion after having spent about 5 weeks in Paraguay(damn I have to write about that too, another day) and went straight to Jujuy. We looked around and went to the cathedral, a few museums and a workshop where they paint archangels sporting weapons- something about the Spanish invasion and how the Spanish soldiers were portrayed as angels bringing Catholocism to the ignorant natives! ANYWAY spent 2 nights there and then got a bus to Humahuaca, in La Quebrada de Humahuaca which is about 2 hours north of Jujuy. Amazing scenery all the way. I took lots of photos from the bus, which I don't normally do, and which I can't seem to upload on any godforsaken website...
Humahuaca has a population of, oh I can't remember. Anyway it's a pretty small town pretty dependant on tourism with the kiddies begging for "una monedita" in exchange for reciting poems about the destruction of the indigenous culture
Kids in Cianzo
Preparing Justo's donkey by the Spanish. The people are friendly enough, well mostly I've just been talking to artesanias who work here, but generally there's quite a good feel about the place. The guy in the tourist office works weekends and bank holidays and hasn't been paid for the last 6 months. The county council is broke! We were lucky to meet a lovely girl, Sabrina, about 2 or 3 months ago in San Ignacio Minì, in Missiones, who has let us stay here in her house, and bed, for the last 2 weeks. From here we've been visiting other towns and using her house as a base. I came here to Humahuaca with the idea of looking for a job, I was thinking something voluntary. When I got here and made enquiries I was told there's not much going in that line, especially as I'm not qualified to do anything like nursing etc. So I went around to various schools offering my services as an English teacher, but the schools just want me to do conversation classes for free. Sod that. I mean I would if I had the time, you know? The municipalidad was talking about me making up something like
an enormous lesson plan, to teach the English teachers English. I went back this morning and it turns out I'd be teaching the teachers for about an hour a day, so with $16Arg/hour for 5 days a week, really wouldn't keep me in the manner in which I am accustomed. I can't spell anymore. So zounds to that, I'll keep travelling instead. I was a bit scared of getting into that anyhow, haven't taught for about 4 years now, or 3. I can't remember if I lied on my cv.
From Humahuaca we went to a tiny wee village dans les montagnes for a night. The wee village is called Cianzo and of the 50 families living there, NO ONE owns a car,truck, lorry or even a motorbike! 2 hours walk to the next village if they have a hospital emergency and even then it's another 2 hours (I may be exaggerating a bit) drive to Humahuaca. Cianzo only got electrified about 4 years ago and only about 5 families have electricity. We spent the night on the floor in the school. They don't have a phone line there and neither do they have mobile phone coverage. It's all
On the way to Iruya
The bus journey was scary a bit mad. We got there about 4pm and ate avocado and cheese sandwiches with some of the teachers there and then went to look for horses to go to see some pretty mountain rangey thing. There was only one horse in the village and he was away for the afternoon so we wandered on and managed to bribe a woman into lending us her donkeys. The poor things were tiny. Someone has since told me that donkeys are like ants and can carry 20 times their own weight. I don't think I'm that gullible. Anyway I fell off my donkey, but not very far. Cianzo was ok for a night but I don't think I could live there. No tv. Quite a few of the people gave us the cold shoulder, not many tourists get there apparently and the locals are very suspicious of them in anycase. The wee boy who we were talking to along the donkey route told me that I'm the first ever white face he's talked to. Lucky boy!! He also told us to be careful of quicksand. I subsequently was very cautious and wasted lots of the trip (once he'd gone) worrying about having
Iruya
And my head to stand on my donkey's head. Little bugger, we didn't find any quicksand. Reminded me of Indiana Jones and those wide-brimmed hats, or maybe my memory is a bit destroyed too.
From Huma I visited another incredible village, this one's called Iruya. It takes 3 hours to get there on the bus and it's all windy gravel roads. The bus stopped to tighten the nuts on the wheels before we made our descent, and we all took photos of the sign which told us we were at 4000metres above sea level. I'm not sure how many people live in Iruya, but it's very small with all the streets at very steep levels. I was out of breath just looking for a hostel. I tasted my first ever goat in Iruya, well I think it was the first time I ingested Cabrita. It was in a casserole and very good. I also tried a pudding called Budin del Quinua, it being a seed of some sort a bit like sesame. Nice... I met some girls there and in the morning I went walking with one of them, who looks the spit of Ester, my friend from Burgos. Anyway walking isn't
Better one of me
With the mountain and Purmamarca too really my thing and so I didn't go all the way to San Isidro- I walked for about 3 hours in total and took it slow. Wonderful scenery, you walk through a dried up river in a huge valley thing surrounded by montañas. Just a few mins after I'd left Ester's lookalike I heard lots of barking noises and, after having eliminated them as being condors (I saw about 8 condors in total on that walk) I realised they were a pack (or a shoal ha ha) of about 5 dogs hurtling down the mountain towards me. I am a dog lover- when they're clean and not smelly- but these were rather intimidating with all the noise of them and no chickens about as a deterent. But instead of eating me, the dogs found a donkey half way down the mountain and the last I heard and saw of them was the poor donkey surrounded by all the dogs with them barking at it. Lucky me!
What other stuff have I been doing... Um, I've spent quite a lot of time drinking red wine and talking to artesanias. I've been in Tilcara quite a bit. I've to go back
there tomorrow to get an English grammar book from a Dutch lady. Tilcara is really pretty and has ancient pre-Inca ruins called Pukara which are reconstructed and sport amazing views of the colourful mountains all around. I'm not actually sure if it's pre-Inca or not. After I publish this I'll not be able to change it so... Ah well.
And Purmamarca, well that's the famous village with the mountains of 7 colours. I don't know how they got only 7 colours, I counted far more. I met up with Justo there last Monday night and the following morning we hiked up to see a view of the village from another mountain. I was coming down again and stupidly put my gloved-hand down onto a cactus and spent the next few days picking out splinters. That afternoon we went to the salt plains, about an hour away and it was my first time so I was v impressed. They had a restaurant built of salt blocks, but it didn't have any food in it so I wasn't as impressed as I could have been! People selling touristy things there, and they were wearing masks and sunglasses- my nose got completely
Salinas
Burning my nose burnt despite 2 doses of suncream, factor 40.
That evening we walked the supposedly 3kms around the mountains at the back of Purmamarca. More dramatic views and boring photos. It took less than an hour with lots of stops and so I think it was more like 1km. I'm not very fast... That night we met up with people I'd met in Iruya and with whom I'd gone to Tilcara and they had a fire going and some vulgar jokes, and then some of us went to a pub for live music. God I HATE pan pipes. Apparently Bolivia's worse. I'm doomed.
Last night I cooked llama stew, it was really good. Only I drank most of the cooking wine while I was making it and had to go to bed by midnight and missed the dance. Ah well...
Tomorrow or Tuesday I'm planning to go to Bolivia, it's only 2 &1/2 hrs away. Justo is going to go to Iruya tomorrow for a few days and we're going to travel independently of each other for a while. It'll be very strange as up until now I've always had either he or someone else to be with. Now
Jumping on the salinas
Camera was too slow to get the in the air part... there'll be no one to look after me! Hopefully I'll become a bit more independent and mature...vamos a ver!
What else should I write about this area. There are lots of interesting things here and the people are mostly pretty ok. I just keep forgetting what I've done. Yesterday we went to a potato festival. That's where we bought the llama pieces. Should I say how cheap it was? About 2 yo yos for a kilo and a half.
If I remember more stuff I'll include it in the next one, I want to get PUBLISHED now..
Oh I did a course on learning to how to germinate seeds for forage, I wasn't the most interested pupil, but I was helping some kids with their English homework afterwards and I went with Sabrina so it was interesting to see how these kids are being taught to be self-sufficient. Their families live too far away for them to travel every day and so they live at the "albergue" during the week, well most of the month I think too, and they cut all the wood for the stove, make bread 2 or 3 times a week and have to
Justo leaping
More of the salinas do all the courses which are put on for them, so that they're kept busy and aren't off fornicating with each other. They're aged between 13 and 18 and there are 22 of them. School is v difficult for them as in their wee villages the education isn't the best, and also a lot of them have to take a month or 2 off every year to harvest maize and other crops. So they come to Humahuaca and go to 3 or 4 different secondary schools here and have to be up to scratch with the other kids who've been here all along. When I was helping them with their English homework they just wanted me to translate everything directly. And they didn't know how to say "what's your name?", they'd missed that part. Oh the confusion...
That'll do me for a bit I think. WIll see if I can get some photys uploaded now. Oh it's sooo exciting this bloggy thing. Thanks Jamie for showing me the way. I don't think mine's going to be as good as yours though
Humahuaca,Cianzo,Tilcara, Iruya y Purmamarca
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rachel walshe
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hola che helen!!!!ts boluuuudaaaaaa:-)!!! miss ye lots and its great to read your stories!!!, by the way, i also tried to call u on your arg. mobile but couldnt get through:-)!!! im still in barce working as a tour guide now.. am gong to patagonia in september, will u still be in south america??? love rach