Another marathon bus journey from Mendoza to Salta, this really is one big country! Met a couple of fun Irish girls off the bus and after a bit of kip we headed to the Main Square for an evening of delicious empanadas and the local Cafayate wine.
Early Sunday morning I was picked up by Umberto my tour guide for the next couple of days. Sunday's fellow travelers were Stella from the Netherlands and Dina and Lucy South Africans living in London). Stella and I are on fairly similar itineraries now for the rest of the time in Argentina so looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of each other!
Sunday's drive followed the route of the tren a las nubes (train to the clouds), a railway built between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries to service the copper mine at San Antonio. The train has been long out of service (except for the once a week tourist special), but follows a gorgeous route through the mountains. Amazingly, the train line was unaffected by the strong earthquake that struck the Salta area after causing much devastation in Chile last year. As soon as we climbed over 1,500m we started coming across the giant cacti sentinels. Incredible the heights that some of them reach when they only grow 1cm a year! San Antonio itself is now a very dusty mountain town with very little industry except for the passing tourist trade. After lunch there we continued through the puna, spotting llamas and vicuñas grazing by the side of the road. After a while of bumping down the dirt track we spied the incredible salt flats in the distance, shimmering like a lake. There are no cacti this high (other than those crafted from salt) as the cacti only grow up to an altitude of 3,500m - a good tip if you're ever lost in this part of the world! We had great fun on las Salinas Grandes taking the obligatory photos and marveling at the otherworldly landscape. The salt mining is a family business, once a father retires, his son is given a job mining the salt. There is no mining during the summer months when it is too wet. From salinas grande the journey continued down to Punamarca through the almost unreal coloured mountains. Punamarca itself is home to the cerro de los siete colores (mountain of 7 colours) and is a pretty little mountain village, with handicrafts and a local population of Andean people who look much more like their Bolivian neighbours than their fellow countryfolk. Stella and I had a great dinner of llama (for Stella) and delicious homemade pasta (for me) washed down the the local Cafayate wine. When I went back to the hostel there were some local musicians with their panpipes and guitars having a jam which was pretty fun to watch.
Umberto picked us up again the next morning with a couple from BA for the continuation of our tour through the Quebrada de Humanaca. The canyon is all multicoloured cliffs with a lush vallley floor where the main industry is fruit and vegetable produce farming. Humanaca itself is where Argentina's independence monument is located as a symbolic site where there was more resistance against the Spanish than in any other part of the country. The villages in the valley are all very pretty and have some of Argentina's oldest churches, including one where the interior was all painted with gold leaf.
Back down to Salta with a day wandering around the city and visiting the mummies of the children of the mountain at the High Altitude Archeology Museum. Stella and I spent the evening at a Pena, the home of Argentinian folk music. It was a really fun night, after dinner a group of musicians sat around with their guitars, drums and on the piano and sang and played for hours. For some songs it was just one musician and for others it was almost as if the whole place was involved - a really great night.