Embracing the provinces that "embrace" one another

I know it's a great thing that my life is full of so many wonderful people and things to do here. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the frequency and depth of my blog and journal writing, and other note-taking for potential research, suffers as a result. You win some, you lose some, right?... I mention all of this especially in my blog entry today because I'm writing about my travels to the provinces of Salta and Jujuy, which I returned from...nearly a week ago (sheepish grin).

Cassie and I left Resistencia last Tuesday evening with plans to visit several places in the Northwest Argentine provinces of Salta and Jujuy. Before leaving, someone shared with me that Salta is commonly described as a province that "hugs" or "embraces" Jujuy, which you can see in this map. We anticipated doing the same in our travels, embracing all that these provinces (or at least the little that we could visit in our 5 days of travel) had to offer in the way of culture, history, natural wonders, food, and maybe even a little of the provinces' native ways of life. We arrived at our first stop Wednesday morning, the capital city of Salta in the Salta province. After checking into our hostel and leaving our things, we headed for the central plaza which seems to be the cultural/historical hub of Salta. Museums on the central plaza that we visited included the MAAM (Museo Arqueología de Alta Montaña, or, Archeological Museum of the High Mountain) that features exhibits, artifacts and history of Inca culture and the Museo Histórico del Norte (or, the North's Historical Museum). The first of these museums is especially notable for its collection of Inca artifacts that have been recovered from mountains of the province. Most remarkable, though, is that this museum features several actual bodies of Inca children that were preserved, frozen, for over 500 years in the mountain. Unfortunately, taking pictures was prohibited in these exhibits but you can see pictures of the children's unearthed bodies on the museum's page that is linked above. The second museum also has exhibits of Inca artifacts but has a greater focus on civilization in the Salta province during the periods of European colonization and revolution against the Spaniards. This museum is housed in the city's old cabildo, government house, and was really interesting to walk through. The view from the cabildo's balcony out into the city's central plaza is beautiful, and I imagine that this space to address the people of the city (who could gather in the plaza) was ingenious at the time of its initial implementation and construction.

Having had our fill of museums for the day, Cassie and I ventured next up the infamous Cerro San Bernardo. Not quite super adventurous and somewhat tired from our overnight bus ride, we elected to take a teleférico gondola up the mountain and return back down the 1,000+ steps on foot.

Beautiful teleférico station

It was a long, long way up Cerro San Bernardo. So far, in fact, that my ears popped.

"Squnity Mc'squinterson" and the city of Salta in the background

Primary statue atop Cerro San Bernardo

A bit of rest was definitely in order at our hostel before we went out again for the evening at one of the most well-known peñas in Salta, La Vieja Estación. What is a peña? (Glad you asked! ;) ) A peña is a show of Argentine folk music, usually including both dancing and singing. We certainly chose one of the best, after being referred to this particular place by both Lonely Planet and our hostel owner, and enjoyed an excellent performance and dinner. Our evening was topped off by the fact that two new friends from our hostel, Carla from the Buenos Aires province and Chyi from Malaysia, also joined us at La Vieja Estación. I personally was amazed both by the intensity of the dancers' footwork and the drumming done by both the dancers and a man in the band that accompanied the dancers later in the evening (note: neither of these videos linked above were recorded by me but they are from the exact peña that I visited). Photos of dance and music performances during the peña:

Purmamarca and Tilcara were primary destinations on our second day of travel as Cassie and I said goodbye to Salta and headed north to Jujuy. After a couple different colectivo rides, we arrived in Purmamarca and were lucky enough to quickly run into a reasonable and safe taxi driver who takes passengers daily to las Salinas Grandes, the Argentine salt flats. I don't have a lot to say historically or culturally about the salt flats, but I will share that the sheer experience of arriving at and exploring this natural wonder was pretty amazing. For as far as your eye can see, there is a hard layer of salt crust covering the ground. I have no shame in saying, sanitary or not, that I picked off a bit of the ground to have a taste. :) Apart from marveling at the vastness of the salt flats and looking at the "salt pools" that have been created to harvest this natural resource, we spent a solid hour in a paparazzi-like photo shoot. Two new friends definitely worth mentioning from this leg of our trip were Anne from Denmark and Nicola from England, both recently living and working in Buenos Aires. I'll let my photos speak for themselves for this gleeful hour of our lives...

Natural pentagons quilting the salt flats' landscape

The salt flat "pools" from which the salt is actually harvested.

After enjoying a late lunch in a tiny diner in Purmamarca, we trekked just behind the town to the famous Cerro de los Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colors) where the colors of this small collection of mountains are supposedly most vivid in the early morning and at sunset. And indeed, we enjoyed some beautiful views as Purmamarca's small corner of the world said goodbye to the sun at the close of another day. Life was yet again breath-taking as the mountains blazed with a rainbow of colors ranging from brilliant oranges to deep hues of violet.

Cassie and I traveled just 20 kilometers north to Tilcara to spend the evening and rose early again the next morning to hike along a path leading to Garganta del Diablo. Here, during this hike in Tilcara, was probably the first time that my body said: ALERT, ALERT! You're at an extremely high altitude! While I'm not in excellent physical shape, I'm not deathly out of shape either. However, Cassie and I had to stop every few minutes during our morning hike to catch our breath as we were probably at least 1,000 meters (if not much more) above sea level. With a tendency to see the glass as half full, I appreciated the gentle reminder to stop every few minutes as an opportunity to appreciate and photograph the sun rising amidst the mountains.

You can see tiny Tilcara off in the distance. We actually hiked quite far from the town!

Then, we did a bit of a travel frenzy, returning first to Salta and then continuing south beyond the city to the town of Cafayate. Arriving rather late, we did little more than browse in a few shops in town, have some dinner and enjoy a small peña before calling it quits for the day. Saturday morning we went in search of a winery and ended up finding much, much more. The small, organic winery we chose to tour was called Bodega Nanni and we were greeted by the bodega's tour guide, a young woman who happened to be from Boston! Jen not only gave us a very informative tour of Bodega Nanni's facilities, she also invited us to hang out with her and several other friends that same evening. The decision was tabled for later in the afternoon as Cassie and I eagerly boarded a small excursion van to tour the Quebrada de Cafayate, a 50 kilometer stretch of mountains and notable rock formations in the region just north of Cafayate. Admirable for their shapes, colors and sheer monstrosity, our visit through the Quebrada was definitely one of the trip's highlights for me.

Los Castillos ~ The Castles

El Obelisco ~ The Obelisk

Feeding a llama is sort of like feeding a horse; their noses are as soft as velvet! :)

Layers and layers of different minerals in the rock make these vibrant colors.

El Sapo ~ The Toad

El Anfiteatro ~ The (Giant) Amphitheater

Garganta del Diablo ~ The Devil's Throat (yes, if you've been following my blog you'll notice this is a very common name for natural elements of grandeur in Argentina)

Back in Cafayate following our afternoon excursion, we decided to jump at Jen's offer to hang out with her and her friends. As Cafayate is a rather touristy little town, it was a great opportunity to spend an evening doing something more "normal" rather than simply being among all the town's other visitors. It was our last night "unofficially" of traveling (the next one would be spent sleeping on a bus back to Resistencia) and Cassie and I certainly went out in fine Argentine fashion. Classic Argentine dishes were in the mix for dinner at a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant along with some great wine (only appropriate as Jen works at a bodega and it was the national day honoring Tannat wine), we played ping pong that was accompanied by many laughs and a night of dancing ensued at a local boliche. I couldn't have dreamed of a better way to bring our trip to a close; Sunday was a relaxed mix of gathering up our things and hopping in the car with Lucas and Laureano, two gentlemen from La Plata who stayed at our hostel and went out with Jen's crew Saturday evening. We rode with these new friends back to Salta where we ultimately boarded our final bus back to Resistencia.

Many people have shared with me that the culture of northwest Argentine resembles that of Bolivia: extremely, extremely laid back and very much in tune with the natural wonders that envelop an individual's everyday life in this region. I don't know if it's the culture, the people, the food, the natural wonders or the sense of tranquility that enthralls me about this region of the country, or a healthy mix of all of them, but traveling more in Salta and Jujuy is definitely on the running list of places I would like to (re)visit in Argentina. So many places and so little time!

Kudos to you if you have stuck with me through this long travel update. You must be a loyal reader (or just really bored. hehe). To these same loyal blog followers, just as Salta embraces Jujuy, I share with you that I shall try and embrace a renewed commitment to updating my blog more frequently. ;) Love to all.