Salta and the Humahuaca valley

Easter Sunday was easy in Salta. We spent most of the day on the city's relaxing main plaza which is also home to its premier tourist attraction - the Museo de Arquelogia de Alta Montaňa (MAAM). First we had lunch, then apéritif, and in between we learnt about Inca culture and human sacrifices at the museum. In the evening, the pink cathedral's church bells were rung by three strong men to call people for mass. We were in need of a leisurely day as we had arrived by night bus from Cordoba that morning.

The MAAM was very interesting though a touch cold. It was created a few years ago after an important archaeological find on one of the highest volcanic peaks in the Salta region (volcán LLullaillaco, 6,739 metres) - the mummies of three Inca children and associated offerings to the gods. The temperature of the museum is kept at a constant low temperature to protect its contents. This find was not the first of its kind on an Andean peak as several other child mummies have been found in other locations, including on the Aconcagua. However, this was the richest and best preserved so far and revealed many secrets about Inca customs. The Incas only occasionally made human sacrifices and when they did, they selected the most beautiful children of the highest noblemen.

The hostel we stayed at was conveniently located only one block away from the main plaza, next to the beautiful San Francisco church. It offered bacon and eggs until well past noon (both a luxury in the Argentinian backpacker world where breakfasts are generally frugal and til 10am) against a small donation to a local charity. As a consequence it was very tempting to just stay there all morning, chilling out and doing some administration in the small back garden whilst munching on a semi-English breakfast. That said, the hostel also offered a nasty surprise and when we checked out we were both covered in small bites which we believed to be bed bugs. I suppose you are bound to get that kind of thing at some point on a journey like this but it is never a pleasant experience regardless. I even had some on my face and everywhere seemed to scratch for about a week even where we had no bites. We warned the hostel and they seemed to have taken positive action so we still returned there after our southern Bolivia salt flats expedition.

Iglesia San Francisco

Afternoons were spent on discovering Salta. We once went to the central market to eat some of the empanadas (pastry filled with salty treats like meat, chicken or cheese) for which the city is famed for and then took the old fashioned cable car (built by the Swiss company Garaventa) to the top of Cerro San Bernardo to watch the sunset. The municipality built a rather large water attraction involving little rivers and cascades in concrete channels on top of the small mountain which also featured a couple of saints statues. The trip is more worth it for the views.

Another time I spent two hours posting a small package to Switzerland. This was an amazing lesson in how inefficient administration can be. First you had to queue for a while in one chaotic line to get a piece of paper from an old post lady that would authorise you to queue for a while in the other line to show the contents of your package to the customs official (in my case a small t-shirt). You then rejoined the first queue to get your mail stamped and sent off. Whilst queueing I learned that you cannot use tape on letter-like packages otherwise they would be classified as more expensive parcels. Glue was acceptable and I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow some from a nice lady in the queue. I also learned that every package that comes into Argentina from abroad needs to be checked by customs officials before people can take their contents home, and some people receiving packages often hire someone to go stand in the queues for them.

After the post office experience we went to the Museo Histórico de Norte because it is housed in a building I was interested to see (the old town hall) and then onwards to the Museo de Arte Contempóraneo. Dave wasn't that impressed by the art museum after Cordoba but he appreciated the glass of fresh Torrontes we enjoyed on the plaza afterwards. This young and light white wine, a speciality from the nearby Cafayate valley, needs to be served extra chilled and cafés on the plaza have worked it out just perfectly. Our favourite Torrontes is Don David from Bodega El Esteco owned by Michel Torino, and we can thoroughly recommend it if you can find it.

On our last morning in town we took a local bus to the Huaico bird reserve. The bus ride was quite adventurous as we didn't really know where we were going but we eventually made it to our destination in the village of San Lorenzo outside of Salta. The bird reserve turned out to be more of a walk through a nice forest than an opportunity to spot new birds. Perhaps it did not deserve the early wake-up call and the bumpy bus ride, though it felt good to be doing something active after all the hanging out on the plaza and museum visiting in both Cordoba and Salta.

View north up the Humahuaca valley

Later on we took another bus for the Humahuaca valley, a UNESCO-listed world heritage area where we wanted to spend two days before crossing into Bolivia. On the way, we stopped in Jujuy to buy our return bus tickets from San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) to Salta as the relevant ticket booth was closed when we left Salta bus terminal. We were keen to buy these tickets in advance and secure the ride back to Argentina (there was only one bus a day we were happy to take) to ensure we would not miss the flight we had now booked from Salta to Iguazu. In Jujuy we walked into town in a failed attempt to change some money and then saved a girl who had missed her stop for Salta.

She did not speak Spanish and didn't understand where she was or what had gone wrong so the bus staff asked me to translate. Her ticket was for Güemes (where she could have easily changed to a local bus for Salta) but the final destination of the bus was Oran on the Argentinian-Bolivian border. She confused the final destination with her actual one so did not get off the bus until questioned by the driver. We put her safely back on a bus to Salta and laughed about the story. That said, I am amazed sometimes how certain backpackers (more often younger ones than not) just seem to drift from one place to the other without a plan or really knowing where they're going. Perhaps this is all part of their experience and in some ways what you are supposed to be doing when you have all the time in your hand - just let faith deal the cards... then I wonder whether I have become too old and cautious already or whether I have not yet travelled for long enough to be bored of guide books? Or perhaps I have simply been born with another character as it is really not a way of travel that I feel comfortable with even if I'm not against surprises nor possible change to a plan.

Hand of cacti-god

It was dark when we finally arrived in Tilcara, the village we had chosen to stay at in the Humahuaca valley. Luckily, we easily found a very cute and cheap hostel near the bus station (we think it was called Hostel Tierra Andina, it's the closest one to the bus terminal, on the left, when walking towards the village centre). The Humahuaca valley is UNESCO-listed because of its traditional adobe stoned villages and its coloured mountains ranging from green and beige to pink, purple and deep red. The area is very dry and the surrounding hills are covered in huge cacti as we discovered on a walk the next day (we are not sure how old they might be but some were at least 6 metres high and very substantial), Tilcara lies at 2,461 metres and we followed the river uphill to about 3,000 metres to see a gorge and waterfalls. We felt that breathing was a bit harder than usual due to the altitude when climbing the steep bits, but not bad on the flatter parts. In any case it was good training for the days to come where we would reach 5,000 metres. At the first fall some of the water was collected to feed the village - for its water and maybe electrical needs too. This water diversion channel in the gorge along the side of the mountain looked very similar to a bisse in the Valais. We had to climb over a few rocks and jump over the river several times to reach the second fall. On our excursion we were also witness to two cows being butchered in someone's garden after having been recently slaughtered (the second was alive when we'd started going uphill earlier in the day).

After the walk to the falls, we visited the ruins of an old Indian fort on the edge of town. More so than in other parts of Argentina, you can feel the Amerindian influence and the proximity to Bolivia in the food and crafts. The diet here includes more corn and quinoa, and llama and lamb more than beef. There's a bit more spice too. Dave was more daring than me and ordered barbequed llama steak during one of our evenings out. We both thought it was excellent - lighter than beef and contrary to expectations not tasting like game. Crafts often involve weaving of llama or alpaca wool - the kind of thing you'd expect in Peru and Bolivia.

The stop in Tilcara was a good transition between Argentina and our first incursion into Bolivia which was to follow. We continued enjoying the stunning views of the Humahuaca region through the bus window as we crossed the remainder of the valley towards the border town of La Quiaca the next day.

Here are some more photos of our stay in Salta and the Humahuaca valley.

Rhubarb meringue