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Published: July 13th 2008
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As we were reserving our hire car, the American guy who had been before us and had gone out to take his car, came back in and asked if they had any automatics....turned out he'd never driven a non-automatic and had just assumed that all cars in Argentina would be, just like in the US! We saw him and his girlfriend walking towards the bus station later in the day looking rather down - isn't it funny the assumptions we make about the world based on our own home experiences.
Luckily everything went smoothly for us when we picked our car up the following day and soon we were heading north on the very winding Route 9 to Jujuy, the capital of Jujuy Province. The road was slow but the views in the (of course) bright sunshine were lovely. Mind you, we didn't realise at that point how blase we would become about beautiful views.
We had a brief stop for lunch in Jujuy, the capital of the province but quite a small town. We found a vegetarian restaurant, definitely a rarity in these parts but even then there was only one set menu - still it was good
to get some vitamins finally!
From Jujuy we headed further north starting the long road through the Quebrada de Humahuaca (Humahuaca Gorge), a magnificent journey through a wide river valley flanked by mountains coloured by the many different minerals they contain. I kept making H stop for more photos but it's not really possible to do it justice with a camera. We also stopped briefly at Maimara, a small village set in front of amazing colours, referred to in one book as like an elephants' feet with painted toe nails! The village has a beautiful cemetery set into the cliffside which seems larger than a village that size would require.
From there we headed up to Tilcara, a small town about half way along the gorge set just below the mountains and checked into a lovely small hotel with fantastic views from our room and tiny terrace where we sat and had coffee before it got too cold. And it did get cold - but that's what you expect at an altitude of around 2,500m. Luckily we had a wood burning stove in our room which kept H entertained for a while after we got back from a
lovely dinner. It was very quiet in the town in the evening - it's still very obviously low season and it's rather nice to be almost the only people around. The roads were incredibly quiet too - if this scenery was in the UK there'd be traffic jams all year round but we probably only saw a handful of cars every hour.
The following morning (after a fantastic breakfast!) was spent at the Pucara or fort on top of the hill beside the village. This is a partly reconstructed pre-Columbian town where they have found a necropolis and a rubbish dump providing lots of information about the culture. It seems that they also used to bury a lot of their dead under the patio so it wasn't a new idea for Brookside!
After the fort we headed off north through the gorge for more sun-kissed mountains. I'm not even going to try to describe the views except that there were more multi-coloured rocky mountains dotted with small towns and tiny, very basic, hamlets surrounding a wide, but mostly dry riverbed. We arrived into Humahuaca, the small town at the top of the gorge, too late to see the
statue of San Francisco Solano appear out of the Municipalidad building at 12pm but the main square was still full of the tourist groups who seem to arrive there for lunch. We had a quick lunch at a place recommended by a woman we had met in the fort that morning - llama empanadas for me (sorry, I know they're cute (see pictures!) but it's a staple food in the region and I had to try it once)! We then wandered some of the back streets and climbed to the highest points of the town (a struggle at just under 3,000m) for some (more!) amazing views. The town is dominated by a rather strange, but imposing, statue of an Indian in fierce warrior pose because the local people made one of the toughest stances against the Spanish but the best thing about it is the views it gives of the surrounding area.
From Humahuaca we headed back down the gorge to Tilcara, with the sun lighting up the other side of the gorge so an almost completely different view. That evening the town seemed even quieter and there was only one other table taken at 9pm when the band
arrived....sadly we were too exhausted to stay and listen.
Following a trip to the museum that contains some of the items found in the fort we headed back to Salta the following day, calling back into Purmamarca just off the main road where the 'seven-coloured' hill was bathed in sunlight. We clambered around the village searching for the perfect photo spots and now have more pictures than we can possibly use but I hope you'll admit it was pretty amazing. We took the highway, rather than the winding country road, back to Salta but it was still late afternoon by the time we arrived and, after finding a hotel, we finally ate lunch around 5pm and managed to survive the rest of the night on a few snacks and bits of fruit.
And the following morning we headed south....but more of that next time.
Hope you all enjoyed the big final (we missed it but not sure I could watch nearly 5 hours of tennis!)...
Lots of love
S + H x
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anonymous
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Fantastic stuff! So much to see even in the last few weeks!