Northern Argentina cont...

Been a while since I updated so heres a brief outline of whats we been upto...

After Cafayate we travelled up to Salta then onto Jujoy then up towards the Bolivian border by way of a few little villages;

First stop was Cachi - well more of a detour really but we´d heard it was really pretty and worth the time, so went. And it was - stunning little village beneath huge snowcapped mountains in a desert of cacti. We went to some ruins which looked decidely new ?? but were more impressed or interested in the shacks/mud huts that the locals lived in on the edges of the town - people are soooo poor and really do live in mudhuts with a door, a window, a dog and a tv.

Salta was a good city we wandered up to the hills and looked out over the city - massive! Cant remember much now... crazy-busy shops and streets. Many Argentine cities are the same format - square in the center with church and similar street names heading out in a grid format. We got a bus onward to Jujoy and sat next to an old lady who dribbled icecream over herself and the table we ate ate at...

Jujoy was much bigger than expected too but the feel here is much different the stalls are more on the streets which is more typical in Bolivia and people are more indigenous and traditional, less European looking. We stopped at a wicked hostel with friendly folks and chatted to the lad who ran it and a German girl but had to leave the next day sadly as they didnt have room. Breakfast in South America always consists of bread by the way... and jam or Dulce de Leche which is condensed milk caramel which they eat by the bucket! It appears in drinks on bread and in deserts (not the deserts). We went to an amazing cemetary here - walls and walls of box-like crypts with small pictures of the people on and plastic flowers. It was stunning to see so many rows upon rows of people. The huge crypts were well maintained (some of them) and it was interesting that these richer dead-people were in better housing than the poor in the shantytown next door who´s roofs were corrugated steel sheets held down by bricks! We walked out to the lakes here and it took us hours to get there by foot and bus! after a 6kn uphill trek we got to the park entrance and were a little underwhelmed by the lakes in the drizzle... more interesting was the little houses we found by taking a wrong turn only to be warned off by angry dogs. We ended up back at the bus terminal and both had didgy stomachs - feeling bad we hauledout backpacks around for hours waiting and amused ourselves by writing abusinve notes to each other and passing them accross the table to each other... finally we got a bus to Tilcara - only to find that it was VERY local and knackered...

Tilcara - heres a story - We arrived in late - 1.30 am - after a ride on a tiny local bus crammed with people. Buses often ride with a police officer onboard as protection against bandits etc. I suppose! We figured we should be able to get into a hostel as most have 24hour reception, but found that everywhere was closed and the town was smaller than expected and it was dark with cold cobbled streets and gangs of teenage kids worrying us a little. We trudged arround town carrying our backpacks in the freezing air and tried a few hostels and hotels without luck - all shut up and noone answering!! Seriously considered crashing out in the kitchen of one hostel we found with the door open, but we eventually happened on a small bar that was buzzing and playing loud music. We asked the girl inside if she could help and she phoned her friend but no luck... She did manage to point us to another hostel which was open though... phew! Crashed out knackered. Next day - Tilcara is pretty with many artisans selling stuff like llama anythings hats, gloves, socks, jewellery etc and it also has a fort on the hill and we explored the ruins amongst giant cactuses and looked out down the huge valley. Back in the town we chanced upon a weird Easter celebration and lots of local kids appeared to the sound of a brassband - the girls were dressed as witches and the boys as Devils with elaborate sequin costumes, masks and covered in mirrors! They all danced and threw handfulls of white chalk at each other. We also trekked upto a waterfall up the canyon bast the "Devils Throat" a huge drop with water cascading over it. The surrounding mountains are stuninng with huge seams of red running through them for miles. The cafe also played an amzing selection of pan-pipe Beatles covers... mmmm...

Humahuaca is a small cobbled Quetchua village and we found a tiny place selling beer, with additional drunk local collapsed inside. We bought a meal and I was suddely hit with a wave of paranoia and became convince that I had food-poisoning! We left quickly and found that the town had had a powercut plus it threw it down with rain! Sophie woke laughing the next day with a song about being stuck behind a chair in her head..?!? We wandered the streets and markets and watched a (robo-)saint appear breafly from the church tower, and also found a bizarre cemetary with brightly coloured spotty headstones (many for musicians) behind a giant monument at the top of some steps. More shacks and brick huts with families living inside. We watched a folk band play in a cafe that night and were both becoming increasingly concerned about our lack of bowel movements over the last few days... erg... the problem with a 60% bread diet methinks - although the fruit is amazing here, supermarkets and markets are usually a walk away and you only seem to be able to find street vendors selling sweets and chocolates and/or bread.. or restaurants that serve fried meat with bread, potatoes, rice and/or spaghetti - carbohydrate-mayhem... theres no way you can loose weight in South America...

Nearing the border we went to La Quiaca and its pretty dead really, aside from the fact that when we arrived there was a roadblock and we had to carry our bags into town (30mins away!). We drank tasty Liquardo´s when we arrived (fruit-shakes) and watched dubbed TV which was a novelty!

We crossed the Bolivian border to Villazon after waiting with 2 Canadians and a Peruvian. Lines and lines of people carrying masive amounts of contrband wrapped in blankets on there backs accross was a sight for sure, it was only a short distance over the border but the difference was amazing! Chaos!! People eveywhere and many, many of them wearing traditional dress - Chola women ware bowler hats with long black pigtails, tied at the back with aprons and petticoat skirts. Many women carry bright shawls on their back with everything from fruit to children wrapped in them! We ate at an Óriental´place - we could have anything so log as it was chicken, and it was all served with not just chips, but rice and spaghetti. Very Oriental. Despite the simplicity of life here, the artwork is top-quality and the walls were painted with amazing murals in a kindof trad/manga style. The childrens play park was a giant dinosaur and there was a funfair in the street. We got the train to Tupiza which made a nice change from the buses. The train shuffled along at a reasonable pace and as we had to buy exec. tickets we got to watch a selction of 80´s music videos on a little TV in the corner - songs that we have heard on repeat and I can hear right now throughout Bolivia... Wham, Spandau Ballet, Tina Turner and other random middle of the road rock ballads -- they love em!!

North Argentina

After San Juan we took a night bus to Tucuman where we spent a few days sorting out some basics and chatting to a few travellers.

Instead of going traight to Salta we decided to take a slight detour through Tafi del Valle - a beatuiful little village set on a hillside above a huge valley and felt for the first time to really be in South America. The little artisan shops were run by native indigious people and they looked significantly less european. The temporature here is also really dramatic shifting from blazing sun in the afternoons to icy chills in the evening. Many people ride horses and wear decorative wooley hats and jumpers. We spent a day wandering the valley with wild horses and jumping over streams. Hitched a lift back to the viallge with a truck driver who took us up to the top of the valley to drop off some stone for road workers before dropping us back in the town center.

From Tafi we continued to Cafayate intending to see the ruins at Quilmes the next day. Cafayate is totally tourist orientated. Every shop in the center is intended for tourists and compared to the little crafts shops in Tafi the place is pretty charmless. The drive in was stunning however and we could see the Quebrada of striped red rocks. We went for a wander towards a hill and were approached by a skinny Quetchua woman who offered to be our guide. We spent the day wandering the hills and waterfalls, lakes and caverns with her and 2 Argentinians. A real test for my spanish chatting all day to the guy and listening to the guide about which plants were cures for everything from cancer to asthma.

Decided to give the Quilmes ruins a miss and head north for Salta then on to Bolivia via Jujoy as reccomended by a couple of people instead of heading for the expensive and touristy San Pedro in Chile (no point going west for ages only to return when we can go north directly to Bolivia).

Argentina

Travelled through the Andes mountain range (stunning) to Mendoza - really plesant, and from San Juan up to San Augustine - a quiet little village from where we could jump off to the surreal National Parks in the area. Ischigaulasto park (which is the only place in the world apparently where all the sediment layers of the Triasic period are visible) was good - loads of dino bones fund here including the oldest and most primitive of them.

Rock formations are really odd and interesting as it the bottom of a river vallry known as the Valle de le Luna (Moon Valley) but the people seem more interested in what there names are (ie, the mushroom, the sphinx etc!). Also went to Talampaya park which was incredible - ancient petroglyphs and huge mountains jutting up into the sky created by the plates pushing into the Andes from the West coast and then being pushed back up inland creating really high red plateaus which are stunning. There was a gorge where a channel was worn away by a river over millions of years that must have been 80 feet tall - when you shout from beneath, it amplified the sound and echoed off for a good few seconds in the surrounding hills!

Took a 4hr bus back to San Juan, followed by a 14hr bus up to Tucuman heading North towards Salta.

South America - Chile

Well we got into Santiago, Chile on the 5th and spent a while acclimatising to South America. Chile is a little more run-down than i expected being one of the richer countries on SA but it´s actually massively more rich in culture than New Zealand and its been a breath of fresh air having the place covered (and i mean covered) in artwork - from posters, graffitti (over EVERYTHING) to poetry (i got a poem from 2 chilean girls for a donation ) street performers, theater and millions of great places to eat. The food is stunning quality and our first night here we ate enough meat (a argentinian mixed grill) for about 4 people for about a fiver each! Wine is really good too and they serve beer and wine in everything from mini-bottles to giant bottles and jugs. The performers are amazing - theres a one man band with ahuge bass drum on his back and symbols attached to his feet who plays impossibly complex samba rhythms while swirling around and spinning in circles. At traffic lights there are mimes, bands and jugglers. Went to a few art galleries which were good too.

Weve grown to really like Santiago and after being a bit paranoid about theft to begin. We have found the people really friendly, humourous and helpful. My spanish is being tried and tested!! Some people seem to be easy to chat to and others act like I have come from mars, but I bought a new digital camera and have organised transport with little difficulty.

We went out to Valparaiso for 2 days on the coast. Its a weird place half a flat port area, and half on the hills. Funiculars (elevators) to take you up the steep hillsides to a shantytown like area, where some of Chile porest live, but amongst these are bright and fantasical mansions, art studios, posh restaurants, many,many colourful jumbled houses, shacks and quaint cobbled streets. We went to a bizarre cemetary on a hill and a guard took us around a prison built 200 years ago to defend the port but used until 14 years ago by General Pinchet for political prisoners - stones cells and crumbling walls are now graffitied by artists and the place is going to be an arts center soon. The markets were incredible - fruit piled in massive amounts and loads of fish.

Were back in Santiago now but just bought a ticket for Mendoza in Argentina tomorrow! The Andes mountain crossing is supposed to be incredible but a girl at our hostel got a court date for mistakenly carrying 2 apples accross! We are not taking any apples..!