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Published: January 10th 2012
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Time goes by and no Wifi until now, yihaaaa!!!!
Observations:
In Argentina you queue up for an ATM and to get petrol, in Tilcara we waited 30 mins to get the tank topped up.
The word disposable means that you take it with you in your car and throw it from the car window so as to scatter it the most, the amount of garbage is astounding!
BUT in Chile we've seen people clean the roadside and the beach, wow.
OK, travels coming up.
The hostel in Salta was really nice we met a lot of nice people and maybe some future friends.
Blabbing along as always I managed to invite three women to ride with us to San Pedro de Atacama, as long as they could fit in the backseat, the biggest problem was their bags, enough stuff to cover a small African country.
After a lot of moving stuff about we finally set of, Meike a Duch girl and Denise and Maeve in the backseat and yours truly at the wheel and N as co-driver.
First wee wee stop to for ever 4 girls had to scatter in different directions
to have pee, must have taken 10 mins minimum.
Then they had to get back into the car and get the seatbelts on, but not before a quick smoke!
Next stop is Puramarca , the village with the famous rock with seven colours, and yes it has seven colours quite nice but also not a whole mountain just a big rock, so here we were with tons of other people who had also come to see the rock and wander about and eat empanadas, small meatpie. I got a dozen and a beer to go so we sat out side and enjoyed the empanadas and our company.
After having fortified us thus we went to see the rock as easily said as done, very pretty indeed and a 2 peso entrance fee.
The trip was rather taxing so on the way back we had to stop for a place that my little eye had spied, a cafe' with mango brownies.
We infiltrated the place of conveyance and had tiffin to our delight.
Then it was time to go to Humahuaca the next stop before Iruya that was to be our northernmost stop on this
trip.
After some contorsions everybody got into the car and off we went on the good Argie blacktop marred only by the warning stripes painted on the road, 10 of them. before a curve and before every bloody curve and all the places wher a river crossed the road.it is enough to drive you bonkers, big time!!!
And to top that they even have road signs indicating an up coming curve!!!!!
Once in Humahuaca out came our fellow travellers guide books so that we could find a hotel, "This one is in the Lonely Planet and this one is in the Rough Guide, following these two publications took us half the way to Paraguay or at least 3 something km from the centre.
Using my veto,I have the car keys, we went back to the centre where we, after 5 mins search found a nice hotel located in the centre, a couple of hundred m from the town square.
Taking in consideration that there were 4 women who had to get sorted we agreed on 9 pm as a suitable time for dinner.
N being of my ilk got sorted in 5
mins so we went off in search of a bar, what else, with Wifi so that I could write more nonsense, by the way all pics are by N.
My camera got lost, not forever, in Baires.
9 pm arrived and we went for dinner, N got sick even before we got the food, I had to send my order back 3 times before I got what I ordered. Not the best of dinners but at least I kept my down, when morning broke N had finally gotten rid of whatever bothered her 'cept me 😊.
WE meet with Denise and Maeve in the breakfast room, what a most unsuitable name for a room where you got a couple of dry pieces of bread and a cup of coffee.
I ask you what's wrong with noodlesoup?
Any way the Irish gals had had a change of plans as had Meike, maybe I should start using a deodorant?, and were not going to San Pedro, but directly to Bolivia.
A pity, the Irish gals were funny especially Denise always with a laugh.
we went for a walk around Huamanaca where they were in the
middle of celebrating the arrival of the three wise men to the crip of Jaysus, loads of kids on the streets all dressed up and drums and flutes and..... quite fun.
All the kids seemed to be exited especially the small ones, one thing though, a lot of kids were dressed as semen, sorry seamen.
Thus enlightened the Chariot sped along the highway towards Iruya, we got to a village where a river crossed the road and it looked rather iffy so we consulted a local chap who said it would be difficult to do that with our car so we thought better to be safe than sorry.
Another cahap came along and and said that we'd better not as the river crossed the road 7 times.
OK we give it a miss then N had been there already so...
Leaving the village we met a bus going there so we go back to the village and get on the bus.
It turns out that he crossing is ok and that the road is A OK, a gravelroad but quite OK.
The bus is everything but fast and Iruya is quickly
covered and a long wait until the next bus goes back, a wait that a glass of plonk makes easier.
The road is just as breathtaking going back as it is coming, serpentinecurves and steep drop offs, we sit in the front and some times the front of the bus is not over the road but out over the cliff, wow!!!
Finally we get back to the village and decide that we should make Tilcara our next stop.
There's some kind of festival going on when we get there , many streets are blocked off and most hotels full.
Finally we get a room and get sorted and walk out into the rain, the dry north of Argie is but a myth, it rains every other day, grmpff!!
The locals are out en masse making parades that certainly are being rained upon, drums, flutes and guitars, the drums are covered in dust bin liners, to keep them dry, a wet drum is of no use to anyone!
We go to a restaurant that has a pena, folk music thingy, loads of people appaling service and crap food, the company is excellent though!
They
even play "Let it be" with drums, flute, charango and guitar, anythying to make a peso I guess or maybe I got grumpy due to the bad service and the crummy food.
Enough is enough we've had a long day and N is tired, having spent last night awake. It's time to go home skipping from one puddle to the other until we get to the dirt streets where you jump from one river to the other, the flow increases as we go uphill to our lodgings.
Fast asleep in two seconds flat!
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