Salty Uyuni

We took a train from Tupiza to Uyuni, armed with a steaming pizza driving the passengers wild who had been on for the previous few hours. It was a long ride and we pulled into Uyuni just before midnight. We met our Israeli friend Dona at the station and she gave us the low down on her tour; she also recommended a company to travel with. We booked into the over priced H.I. affiliated hostel until we could find alternative accomodation the following day- which we spent looking about the town. It has some bizzare statues on the main street, along with lots of tourist restaurants and shops.



We booked a trip on the salares for the next day. The Salar de Uyuni is extradionary. It's the worlds largest salt flats at an elevation of 3653m and covers 12,000 sq km of land. It's the remains of a prehistoric salt lake, Lago Minchin.
There are a variety of tour options from one to four days. The longer trips include stays on the plains where tempertures fall below -4C and electricity is scarce. We thought about this option, as it includes climbing a volcano, visiting hot springs - although entering and exiting them at 6am in sub zero temperatures didn't appeal to us. Also on the last day you pass a flaminco reserve, but we would later get to see the park and the birds fly on our train outside of Oruro- which was amazing. After talking to some travellers and considering the cold and the waiting around that all tours involve, we eventually decided on just a day trip.


We departed around 11am, first visiting the Cementerio de Trenes or train graveyard. This just had lots of rusty trains and rubbish, but was the setting for some great photo ops!




We were travelling by jeep, 'we' being the driver, a girl from La Paz, a Chilean guy, two Korean women and us. The 'road' across the salt flats was arbitary with paths criss-crossed all over the flats and the driver changing at will. Our first stop was at a little villiage that seemed to process some of the salt and had mounds gathered up for the tourist to jump from for some cool photos.



The sky was astonishingly blue, in blazing contrast to the brilliance of the white salt flats. We bought a few souvenirs here and progressed deeper into the white, until we reached the 'museum' which is actually an 'old' salt hotel- an illegal structure on the salt plains. There were previously a few salt hotels out here but they were moved brick by brick to an outer location creating less of an environmental impact. The flats are so pure and white that something like a hotel out there is just wrong. When I write 'salt hotel' this is exactly what they are. Each brick of the hotel is made from cemented salt, as are the beds, tables, chairs etc. It's now called a 'museum' but some tours still use the hotel as a sleeping point.


Outside is a salt platform, housing lots of flags for it's international visitors.


The vast empty flats are truly incredible. They are the perfect blank canvas for some great mind distorting photos We weren't well prepared (how unusual I hear you say!) and our camera battery wasn't charged- silly us. But we managed to knock out a few photos. We took some funny pictures for the Korean ladies, including one of them superficially standing on Mal's head and arms; unfortuantely we don't have a copy- oh well..




The last stop before heading back was at an island with lots of cacti and old coral rocks, which the guide says are the proof that it once was an inland sea.

The trip was a spectacular experience and we highly recommend it.

Enter Bolivia

From people who have never been to Bolivia but have heard wild stories about cowboys and poverty, we were advised to stay away. From those who have visited we heard that it was their favourite destination in South America and it sadden them to leave. With such contrasting view, we couldn’t wait to enter! It’s a country that has the worlds highest everything. It’s South America’s poorest country. It has the largest population of indigenous people at 60%. Bolivia’s languages are Spanish Quechua, Aymara and Guarani. It’s the world’s biggest producer of the coca leaf- but they´re not exactly cocaine addicts, prefering it in it´s natural form. They leave the cocaine to the Americans, who are the worlds greatest consumers. As for landscape, it has everything except beaches for the country is landlocked thanks to the War of the Pacific in 1879-83 when Chile annexed the 350km of Bolivia’s coast.

We caught a bus from Humahuaca to the Argentian side of the border, La Quiaca. We met an Israeli girl on the bus who was on our tour in Cafayate therefore we walked to immigration together, waited in the queue for ages and eventually enter Bolivia through a town called Villazón. We had lunch together before saying our goodbyes as she was taking the train to Uyuni and we wanted to make a stop in Tupiza before heading up there.

Tupiza

Wow, there was an instant difference between Bolivia and Argentina and that was with the roads. It was a rattling bumpy three hour ride with the roads still ‘under construction’. Every half an hour or so we would see a bulldozer or pipes waiting to be laid, but nobody there to work them; we think that they either ran out of money or were all on a long break.

Tourism seems to run Tupiza and there were a few touts waiting for us when we alighted from the bus. We found a nice room, half the price of Argentina and searched about town for a horse riding tour. We arranged an excursion for the following day, choosing a three hour trip, thinking our thighs and bums would thank us later, not to mention Mal’s manly parts! That night we ate at one of the many touristy ‘Italian Restaurants’ and after waiting for about an hour we had some surprisingly good pizzas. Afterwards I decided to sample the coca tea finding it to be not much different from green tea, needless to say, I liked it.

The next morning we presented ourselves at the tour company and found our guide waiting. He looked about 12 or 13. I complained to the tour guide that he should be at school and they should provide us with a non child-labour guide. He assured us that there was ‘no problem’ the guide was 14 and very responsible. Ha, a working adult at 14 the poor thing. I asked him his name and after the second attempt he remembered his tourist name and told us it was Daniel. Oh, please God let this be different to our other camel-back riding tour with the other ‘Daniel’ in the Indian desert!

We took a local bus to the stables and waited for the guides to select the horses and saddle them up. With us were a Manchester couple and an Irish guy who had opted for the full day- good luck to them! We requested the tamest horses and eventually mounted them rigged out in Sombreros and galoshes.

Thankfully the horses were as described and took it easy on us. We rode with the other three for half an hour and then it was just us and the guide. Daniel had disappeared, perhaps afraid of me and there was a 16 year old in his place. He had a pierced lip, baseball cap and would look out of place on a horse if it wasn’t for the face that he was so comfortable in the saddle, with a slight pull on the reigns the horse would do anything he suggested.

We stopped at a mound of rocks and walked up what once was a waterfall while our guide rested. It was beautiful, truly stunning scenery. Believe it or not, this was the actual stomping ground of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. It was here they met their demise after a robbery just 40km from the area!


We returned via a different route passing a rock formation named the ‘Devils Door’.


We rode along the road for a bit and as a jeep passed I patted my horse and talked to her like a real horse whisperer, thinking I knew exactly what to do as I had just read ‘All the Pretty Horses’, but really the horse was tame and probably did this everyday. Mal’s horse was slightly wilder and nearly bucked when the guide grabbed the reigns and tried to drag her off the road. Before reaching the ‘main road’ there was a dead-end between some high rocks and a small ditch. I was wondering if the guide had brought us down a wrong path when the horse suddenly turned for the ditch and before I could freak out she jumped! I hardly felt anything on landing- in all fairness it was a small ditch. I quickly looked back to see Mal’s horse doing the same thing. The jump looks higher when you’re an observer. I actually got a slight adrenalin rush and was smiling all the way back to town.


Instead of taking the bus we rode the horses, or rather they led us back to town on the railway line alongside the road. Amazingly they knew every crack and turn in the rails and adjusted their hooves accordingly.

We hung out in Tupiza for another day and the town celebrated Independence weekend. Seriously all the men were drunk pretty early in the day while the women opened food and drink stalls all over town. We gorged ourselves and watched the parade in the main square. The female band members’ uniform was the shortest I’ve ever seen, on the prettiest girls in town. Mal made us watch the whole parade.


The rest of the women wore more traditional clothes and were slightly wider. They all balance bowler hats atop their heads just like the Bolivian women you see in the latest James Bond movie. Quite the fashion statement I think.

Salta-Tilcara-Humahuaca

Salta

Salta was all about chilling out for us. I think the main draw of the city is for relaxing and recuperating to ‘recover from the travelling’! So we followed suit and found a nice hostel that didn’t break the bank and checked out the town. The city is nice and has a lovely plaza as do all Argentinean towns and cities. We strolled around viewing the beautiful churches and watched a change of guards in the main square which went on way to long. It eventually just looked like lots of men prancing about on horses, what they were trying to re-enact we didn’t find out.

We visited the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña which is a museum dedicated to the amazing discovery of three child mummies found at an altitude of 6700m on the Llullailaco volcano. Due to the freezing climate, the bodies and all that they were buried with were perfectly preserved. The children, two girls and a boy were probably sacrificed to the gods as special chosen ones. We were not allowed to take pictures so here’s a link to the museum site: www.maam.org

There was also a stage set up in the evening and a local band gave a concert which wasn’t half bad.

I decided to continue the serious business of chilling out with my book while Mal climbed the 1000 winding steps up Cerro San Bernardo to the lookout. Mal said the views were spectacular out over Salta and the Lerma valley, with a lovely park at the top.

I’m not to jealous, I still got the reward of a nice dinner that evening, and I didn’t even have to leave the comfort of my bed!

Tilcara

The bus to Tilcara wasn’t the most pleasant experience. We were sitting near the toilet and some poor man was obviously having a bad reaction to his food, with the smell of his efforts wafting out. Mal nearly puked sitting directly in the firing line, gasping for air through the jammed shut window.

Thankfully our bus was only going as far as San Salcador de Jujuy. We had a lovely lunch in the city and soon realised how close to Bolivia we were. The people looked different, markets sprawled onto the littered streets and the city was messier, less orderly than your average Argentinean city. It is definitely not a tourist city, more a living real place that cares little about the few tourists that wander from the bus terminal. We didn’t stay to long, catching a bus that arrived in Tilcara in the late afternoon. The trip was worth it as Tilcara is a lovely town with an artistic vibe about it. We stayed in a traditional style hostal and were invited to join the evenings BBQ, but declined as it is largely a meat affair and would leave me starving. It was a good decision as the restaurant we ate in had a traditional music show that evening.

We watched some folk dancing and two bands. The first was a folk singer and storyteller, with a strange looking guest traditional-mandolinesque player. The second had a more ethnic sound, with one guy playing a gigantically-long horn, almost swiping the heads of the patrons with every turn.

The next day we checked out Tilcara’s hilltop pucará, which is a pre-Hispanic fortress with unobstructed views of the surrounding hinterland, very pretty.

Humahuaca

The ride to Humahuaca was beautiful, driving alongside the Quebrada de Humahuaca. As we had so recently visited the Quebrada de Cafayate, we decided not to stop and do a tour as the landscape is so similar. We decided to simply enjoy the view from our bus window.

Humahuaca was our last Argentine stop before entering Bolivia. This is a mainly Quechuan village, being the people who occupied the land before the Spanish invasion. As we were walking down the street a little girl invited us to stay in her family’s guesthouse. This was our cheapest room in Argentina to date it wasn’t bad. We asked the mom if we could borrow two cups for our tea, and after a short rant about getting the cups back she eventually came up with a solution of giving us clean plastic jam containers! A little insulted we took the jam pots and enjoyed a nice cup of tea, washing and leaving them for the woman to reclaim the next day.

As it was a Sunday there wasn’t much happening in the town, although it is pretty. We walked around and up to the local monument, chatted with some nuns for Slovenia and Romania, and marvelled at the adobe houses. That weekend was the festival of Pachamama or Mother Earth. Although most of the country has adapted the Catholic religion they still hold on to some of their traditional beliefs and Pachamama is one of these. We saw even more of this once we crossed the border into Bolivia. As the country is so barren and the people don’t have much, they are reliant on Pachamama for a good harvest, for rain, for luck or whatever earthly need they have.

Pachamama isn’t the only mother who is important here, and we found many statutes in tribute to mothers everywhere. There was a particular rise in teenage un-wed mothers in these small Argentinean towns around late November or early December. These babies have locally been known as los hijos del carnival or the children of the carnival. During the carnival a lot of alcohol is drank and one thing leads to another, resulting in teen-pregnancies. In 2006 the government decided on a sex-education and condom-distribution programme for these northwest towns.

So thankfully then we missed the festival and entered a quiet town, leaving Argentina the next day to enter the wild west of Bolivia.

Cafayate 1600m

Cafayate

More wine and mountains, we loved Cafayate. On our first day we checked out the quaint pretty town and had a tipsy lunch which included a sample of the local white wine- torrontés.

We then took a walk out to a goat cheese farm where we bought some yummy herbed cheese. We finished the day at a bodega, taking a wine tour and sampling the local drop which was so good that we bought a bottle having it for dinner with the cheese, delicious!

The next day we took a tour of the Quebrada de Cafayate 50kms away. This mountainous sunburnt red dusty area holds a host of spectacular sandstone landforms some of which are named the Devil’s throat, Amphitheatre

toad

Obelisk and more. They were pretty amazing; you got a sense of how the landscape is susceptible to change with large landmasses jutting up from the earth, with multicoloured striation marks across their fronts.

Everywhere we looked produced spectacular views, we were impressed having never seen such raw earth before. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here.

No rest for the wicked, we decided to walk the 5km to the base of the nearby mountain and hike the two hours up to the local waterfall the following day- and then return the same way. Apparently you can swim in the waterfall in summer, but due to the ice floating on top we were not tempted- despite the sweaty hike to get to it! It was a beautiful day, if a bit tiring and we certainly deserved our food that evening.

Which brings me to another highlight of Cafayate: La Casa de Empanadas or house of pies. You can imagine that Malachy was in his element, as was I. Out of the 12 flavours of empanadas on the menu, six were veggie. Mmm they were so good, we still dream about them, and they go particularly well with a glass or two of the torrontés, which naturally we combined. It was begrudgingly that we left Cafayate the following day.

Tucumán

Our first stop as we progressed up north was a city called Tucumán. We just overnighted there taking in the vibe of the city where Argentina was declared independent. It’s a nice city, perfect for a quick stopover. We stayed in a quant friendly hostel near the central plaza which is landmarked by the illuminated Casa de Gobierno. We spent the evening strolling around the various markets and plazas.

To continue the journey we bought an open three stop bus ticket up country with our first stop being Tafí del Valle.


Tafí del Valle

We arrived in Tafí early afternoon after snowfalls in the mountains and were accosted by a little old lady who wanted us to rent her annexed cottage flat.


We were easily won over by the whitewashed walls and little fire stove, a comfy assurance against the frost outside. It felt like we were in a little old traditional Irish cottage, and keeping it real the wind blew straight through the cracks around the windows and doors. Thankfully the five blankets on the bed and the burning embers kept us warm.


The town was perfect, it looked like a film set, ideally placed in a snowy mountain valley overlooking a lake with llaymas in the fields.


After wandering around the town we discovered that the best way to reach the Parque Los Menhires, some 10km away was to hitch the quiet country road.


A pick-up eventually stopped and we hopped in the back, next to a raw rip cage, presumably dog food. Oh My God was it cold when we rounded the corner and the crosswinds from the lake hit us, we were blue with chattering teeth when we eventually arrived.

First things first, a warm cup of tea and lunch, we had some traditional food wraped in a corn leaf.


The Menhires are indigenous granite monuments collected from nearby archaeological sites representing ancient art and prayer.


Getting back wasn’t as easy, we waited a while for a lift, walked along the foggy icy roads eventually getting a lift half way with two fisher men, and amazingly we got home the rest of the way with the same pick-up that brought us there. This time we knew to sit with our backs to the wind!
Before leaving we made sure to sample some of Tafí’s handmade cheese which weren’t half bad.

Amaiche
Next was Amaiche a tiny town where we stopped to visit the nearby ruins of Quilmes. We joined a tour with just one other lady from Buenos Aires. Our guide was of Quilmes Indian decent and his German girlfriend was our translator, she also brought along her baby on the tour.

We stopped en-route under the shade of a medicine tree where our guide described the history of the Quilmes people, of their near obliteration by the Spanish invaders and the current state of affairs. Then it was on to the ruins, these are amazing and surrounded by a forest of cacti.

It looked like a ‘cowboy and Indians’ movie! The ruins were appropriated and partially restored under the dictatorship of General Videla in the 70’s without consulting the Quilmes people, the rightful owners. The land was then leased to a business man named Cruz for ten years for $110 which he didn’t pay. He actually built a hotel with a swimming pool on the grounds without consent from the community or any impact studies. It’s now closed and in legal contention. The site remained closed for some time but the Quilmes community decided to reopen it to visitors, thus benefiting the community. The hotel remains closed.


On our return we visited a small village with mud brick houses, and a little ceramic workshop. We drank maté with the owner while discussing his way of life and his craft which he learned from his mother.

Maté is the country’s obsession. It’s a tea drink made from the herb yerba maté. It’s unusual to see a group of Argentineans on a bus or trip or bunched together without at least one thermos flask full of hot water amongst them. The person with the flask carries the cup, which is also called the mate and fills it up with the yerba and adds hot water. You usually drink the tea out of a sliver straw with perforated ends so only the tea and no herb gets into the straw. The first person drinks the tea and it’s refilled with water and passed to the next person, everybody shares the same cup and straw. The tea can be refilled many times, usually until the water runs out. If you don’t want another round of tea you say ‘gracias’ when you’re finished drinking and hand the cup back to the host. It tastes a little like herby green tea, but they add lots of sugar so it’s way to sweet for us, if we have to accept any we’re quick with our ‘gracias’ in returning the cup. As an avid tea drinker I wholly commend this practice- although the sharing of the straw is a little gross, especially in these times of swine flu!

After our trip to the ruins we checked out the local museum named Pachamama, who is mother earth. People pray to Pachamama for a good harvest or present offerings to her in appeasement. Even with the acceptance of Catholicism throughout South America, Pachamama is still important and prayed to.

This museum was pretty impressive with an array of beautiful rocks from the surrounding countryside, including quartz, gold and marble. It also gave an example as to what the houses at the ruins would have looked like when the 5000+ Quilmes people lived there.

The museum grounds are beautiful with pebble pictures depicting some of the traditional indigenous pictures and symbols.

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