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I´m picking this up back in BA after taking a circuit through Northern Argentina, Southern Bolivia and Paraguay with a last stop at the Iguazu Falls. It was a great month or so. Took some great photos of all that we saw and met along the way but my bag got nicked on arrival in BA and I lost pretty much everything. I had my money belt in there so I lost all my back-ups of music and photos and my passport. Doh! Earlier in the year I made a top ten list of things to take traveling (I had a lot of time on my hands back then) and basically 8 of those things were in my bag! So it´s a good thing we´re heading back to the UK in couple of weeks.
How did it happen? It was the old distraction routine. While I was getting some cash Em was looking after the bags but for one second she was distracted by a lady and the accomplice did the rest. Very annoying and we feel very foolish seeing as this happens so much. We´ve been downloading some photos off flickr of the places we went to - to try to ease the pain and fill the gap in our records but to be honest there´s a lot of crap up there...so we´ve resolved to be more careful next time.
After our first stint in BA and with much consideration, we decided to miss out Iguazu and head to the north west, to Salta. Really nice place, we were a bit knackered from BA and had a few things to sort out re next year (and the hostel had a pool), so we spent quite a bit of time hanging around and on the computers. With the realisation that this is all going to come to an end alarmingly soon, personally I am cherishing all of the chilling out time I can get!
We did manage to have a look round the town and as the sun was setting we took a ride on the cable car to the top of the hill over looking the altiplano in which Salta is based. That was beautiful, took some great photos. Also went for a day out in the hills by San Lorenzo, it was only a couple of hours along a valley and back, but the scenery was great and we saw some wild avocados! Also had a look at the High Altitude museum which featured some mummified Inca children that were sacrificed about 1000´s of years ago. A bit weird. We also celebrated our 4th anniversay.
Argentina was generally a lot more expensive than we were expecting so we had to rule out the tours. But we figured we could have just as much fun by using the Collectivos, (cheap local buses) to get around. What we saw was breathtaking in places. So we vouched to come back for a holiday with some more cash and also to raid the antique shops in BA!
After Salta we headed north to a dusty little town in the multi-coloured hills called Tilcara. We visted very impressive reconstructed ruins of an inca fortress. Couldn´t stump for the guide so we didn´t learn that much but you could get the jist of things by having a look round, great view from the top. And loads of cacti! Bought some coca leaves but didn´t know how to chew them properly and they just tasted like chewing green tea.
The next day we had a quick look round the market. Took a photo of a lady dressed up in traditional clothes including the bowler hat. She was selling maté enhancers which claimed all sorts of miracles! The market itself was based under a high corregated iron structure with no walls so you could see the mountains from inside the market. Made a great photo.
Then we took the 15k walk to the "devil's throat" and a waterfall. It was a great walk, took a photo of pretty much every cactus and multi coloured rock that we passed along the way! I think we reached about 3000 metres before the descent into the valley - good training for the Inca Trail. And I saved a small boy from falling off a cliff!
Em bought some silver jewellery off a hippy on the way back. We mentioned to her that we were heading to Iruya next and she advised us of another place that can be reached from Iruya, but only by foot or donkey!
Our ticket to the ruins included entrance to a musuem, mostly pre-columbian artefacts. I think they might have had a mummy as well but we couldn´t find it.
Spent an hour or so chilling out in the main plaza. One corner was devoted to hippies selling jewllery and the rest was back to back stalls selling the same stuff. It was getting very cold in the evenings so we headed back to have dinner and watch a film in bed, (Eastern Promises, excellent film, cheers mouse!). Also watched Ghostbusters, it was Em´s first time and she wasn´t impressed.
Early bus to Iruya, great journey, hit 4000 metres, then wound our way endlessly back and forth down into the valley to the village. Nice place, it had a board in the main plaza with map and a key to the houses of each of the 12 or so families that lived there. Built into the valley wall, this was 100 hundred years of solitude land.
After we got ourselves settled we headed for the mythical village of San Isidro;the walk through the valley was amazing. The valley bed was about 50 metres wide with an icy river meandering down it. After a while this river became impassable so we stopped for lunch. While hanging around we saw one of locals cross by taking a path up the valley wall. We tried to follow suit but after clambering up to the top I didn´t like the look of the path back down, any slip looked like certain death, or at least a broken bone or two before falling into the river. So we turned back - not before Em nearly gave me a heart attack by trying to tackle it by sliding on her bum!
On the second morning we were lucky enough to catch the easter procession through the village. The girls at the front were singing and everyone holding bouquets of herbs, mint, basil and sage together with flowers like marigolds. You could smell them everywhere!
Afterwards we crossed the river to the neighbouring village and had a wander about. Everyone was at church so there wasn´t much to see so we headed back for a look at the very colourful cemetry and that was that.
That´s pretty much it for northern Argentina. We had a mini crisis on the way up to Bolivia when the bus dropped us of in the middle of nowhere to pick up a proper coach to take us the rest of the way. It was a hairy couple of hours and after missing the first two of three buses we managed to catch the last one and made it safely to the border for a last bife de la frontera and some nice cheap red wine. We liked Argentina and still do!
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