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NB. Couldn't upload a picture of the mountains :-(
On Sunday 6th May I took the bus to Northern Argentina. We exited Chilean immigration in San Pedro then drove about 3 hours up over the Andes (a slow climb!) to Argentinian immigration at 4230m! Both immigrations took a while and for the first time entering Argentina the backpacks had to go through a scanning machine. The journey continued and we arrived at the first stop, the village of Purmamarca, at 8pm, about 3 hours later than expected. The landscapes and views on the journey were fantastic, a lot of 'nothing' but you also pass through the mountains, with lagoons and reflections and flamingos. It was greener on the Argentinian side and started to see animals such as donkeys, sheep and goats as well as llamas. The highlight was probably seeing the 'Salinas Grandes' salt flat which was beautiful and gave me an idea of what I will see in Bolivia - it had some water on it so you could see some reflections (which I won't see in Bolivia as it will all be dry by then). Another lady, Vida, got off the bus in Purmamarca so we went together to find somewhere to stay. Once we had our accommodation sorted we ate in the restaurant downstairs, which was a nice meal, accompanied by live music. It was a "peña" which is a restaurant/bar with live folkloric music, very common in this area. The music was Andean music and they did a mixture of instrumental music with guitar, pan pipes, flute and drum and also sang. They also enjoyed talking to the audience in between songs, talking about the area andso on- it was a nice evening.
On Monday morning Vida and I went for a walk through the "7 colour mountains" which are right next to the village- in fact we could see them from the window when we got up! The walk only took about an hour but it was a beautiful walk through the mountains and the variation in colour was stunning. Afterwards I called into the school where I had been in the morning to speak to the English teacher. Unfortunately they only have English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I didn't get the chance to help out/visit English lessons. In the afternoon I had a walk around the village, walked up on the hill on the other side of the village for a view of the village and the mountains and then sat in the sun to read my Spanish book "Come, Reza, Ama" (Eat, Pray, Love) which I have been carrying around since October and decided it's about time I try and finish it! Another girl, Ruth, arrived in our dorm and the three of us went for dinner. More live music, which was good, but this time you could tip rather than have a charge automatically added to the bill! Service was bad though so no tip for them!
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