Adventures in the Andes

Tuesday, Jan. 18

My room was very quiet with the solid inside shutters closed. When I awoke, the room was still dark, but I sensed it was time to get up, and it was--8:30. Breakfast was light--rounds of toast, croissants, butter, jam, fake juice, and coffee or tea.

I spent the morning in museums. Both the history and anthropological museums had nice exhibits of the Pre-Colombian period cultures, including ones existing here long before the Incas. They were quite creative in making funeral jugs which were used to bury the dead. Some had nice painted designs while others had sculptural designs to decorate them. The history museum also had good displays of architectural relics from early periods in the history of Salta--doors, hinges and locks, columns, window grates, etc.

For lunch, I stopped at a small empanada place. I got two with meat, two with chicken, and one with cheese. They were freshly made and kept in a cooler until ordering. Then they were taken to the back and cooked. They were served hot with a nice red chile sauce. The empanadas were juicy and delicious, and the hot sauce left a garlicy tingle on the tip of my tongue.

Walking: 18,469 steps (6047 aerobic steps), 773 calories, 12.55 km (7 1/2 miles)

Wednesday, Jan. 19

I was so excited last night about my new travel plans to go up into the mountains. Then just after going to sleep, I could feel a slight soreness when I swallowed. I knew I was going to get a cold. It was so frustrating thinking about where I am going and how much more difficult and less enjoyable it will be with a cold. It has been over a year since I had one, and it was a mild one that disappeared after only 4 days. I hope this one doesn´t sap my strength too much.
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So far, not too bad. I left Salta for Jujuy at 9:30. There was a bus leaving for Humahuaca 5 minutes after our arrival. I got a ticket and rushed my way through the crowd. It was a small bus with no luggage storage, so I was lucky to have a back seat so my luggage could set between two rows.

There was a problem, however. The man had sold me a ticket to Purmamarca instead of Humahuaca. I discovered this when I checked the ticket as the bus turned off the Humahuaca highway for Purmamarca. Fortunately, the bus was continuing to Humahuaca after a detour, so I could buy an extra ticket and get to my intended destination.

I sat with some young woemn and an older couple who spoke English. The older couple warned me that I may bit be able to get a ticket to Iruya tomorrow. They had to wait two days for theirs.

The bus got here at 2:30, and the ticket office for Iruya won´t open until 6:00. I followed signs and checked into the nicest place in town, a motel named Camino del Incas. It is $20 per night. I was afraid the other places would be full. There are LOTS of backpackers up here in the mountains.

I went to a restaurant I passed earlier and had lunch. It was a plate lunch with spicy chicken, a ground beef mixture, a potato, rice topped with sliced tomatoes and onions, and a greenish-gray vegetable that seemed to be a starchy root. The lunch included a dessert which was a piece of goat cheese with a dark syrup poured over it. It was a good meal. I took a photo of the main course.

It´s dry and dusty here. All the towns consisst of adobe buildings, and the hills are covered with candelabra cacti. Any village here would make a good setting for a western movie representing the southwestern U.S. But it is definitely the Andes. There are native South Americans all over the town. They are selling Andean weavings, flutes, etc.

Almost all the tourist up here are young people. I have seen only one other tourist in town who is anywhere near my age. The young people like like students--like poor, liberal students. Their dress is rather hippyish. How liberal they are is questionable, however, since they sure are pushy at cutting in line!

I went at 5:00 to get in line for buying my bus ticket at 6:00. There was already a crowd, but it was two times bigger by the time the window opened. I got my ticket after a long wait behind people who were buying 4-10 tickets at a time.

I am spending my evening in the room. My body is tired. So far, the cold is slowly developing. I can feel it, however, in terms in weak muscles.

The room itself is very nice. One wall is unpainted stucco with large stones insterted in it. The floor is brick tiles and has Andean wool rugs (nice and plush). The woodwork, the furniture, the fixtures, etc., are all tasteful and of good quality.

It is cool here in the daytime and is getting cold tonight. There are some clouds. I hope they pass without it raining, because rain could cause the rivers to flow so that the buses couldn´t aake the trip.

Walking: 13,051 steps (7174 aerobic steps), 602 calories, 9.55 km (5 3/4 miles)

Thursday, Jan. 20

Well, jthere was a light rain last night and it is sprinkling and cloudy this morning. I am worried about two things regarding Iruya: 1) Will I get trapped there if it rains more? 2) Will I have a problem getting accommodation? Since I stayed in a nice place, I found a couple who speak English at breakfast. They are going to Iruya, too, but via a hired van. Their driver will pick them up at 9:00, and they promised to tell me what he says about conditions. Of course, that still won´t resolve the accommodations question.

There´s no Internet place here in Humahuaca. That surprises me. There is telephone service and cable TV, so I thought there would be a cyber cafe, especially with this many tourists. If I go to Iruya, it means I will be out of touch with everyone for several days. But I cannot start restricting my travels to places where I can constantly be on the Internet. People reading my blog just have to learn that there are still remote places in the world that may cause gaps of a few days in my postings.
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Well, I came to Iruya. It was an interesting trip. The bus was full, and I had a good seat in the front. Beside me and just in front of me was a family returning home. The grandmother would be a good subject for a portrait. She had black, kinky, long hair and wore an Andean hat--borad, almost flat brim with a short top. She had a pleated skirt, a top and socks of a native weave, and black shoes.

Next to me was a strange man about my age. He is from Spain, and I think he has been traveling along too long. He kept making noises--whoops, whistles, clapping, etc.--when he was happy about something. Or maybe he just has Tourette´s Syndrome which has those symptoms. He was different!

The trip was exicting and beautiful. The mountains here are totally desert with stones scattered everywhere, but there is lots of greenery growing on them. We crossed rivewrs (without bridges) several times, so I can see how rains close the roads. We climbed and climbed until we reached 3000 m (about 10,000 ft). We stopped briefly for a few of a 4000 m (about 13,000 ft= peak and the valley between us. There were many switchbacks on the road, and often there were deep dropoffs. We met a pickup at a critical point; fortunately it was on the outside, so they were the ones who had to be concerned about falling. The last 30 minutes of the trip were along the riverbed inside a long and rather deep canyon.

Iruya is on a hillside going up from the river that formed the canyon. It is a small, cobblestoned village with steep streets. The people in the area or indiginous. Everyone we passed in the countryside looked like a phto opportunity for National Geographic with their brightly colored panchos, hair ribbons, etc. The town itself is rather small. It is definitely far from hwere people normally live and travel. I may meet a European some day who has been here, but I doubt I will meet an American who has.

I knew there was a hotel at the top of the hill, but it was just too steep at too high an altitude for me to make it up to there with my luggage. I was stopping and breathing as if I had asthma. Backpackers were swarming everywhere looking for rooms, so I took a bed in a shared room that was still available. There are 4 others in the room--one other person in a bed and 3 on bedrolls on the floor.

I met the people from my hotel this morning. They recommended a restaurant where they had eaten lunch, but it was already closing. I went elsewhere and had a nice lunch--roasted quarter of chicken with rice. There was Parmesan cheese to sprinkle over the rice and a lemon wedge to squeeze over it. For dessert, I had flan with a caramelized milk paste.

I sat on the main square and read for a while. But it is cloundy and there was a cool breeze. While there, however, one of the students was playing nice, mellow songs on his guitar. It was very relaxing to look at the views of the pink and green mountains while hearing his music.

I also met some nice Argentina students who were staying in another room here at my hostel. They are more clean cut looking than most of the students traveling here, and they speak English well. The whole group is majoring in social communication, a degree that combines sociology and journalism. They are worried about getting jobs and said they hope they can avoid working for the government.

I finished my mudger mystery and am now reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Márquez. It is interesting so far, but I can understand the confusion the similar names have created for others I knew who have read it. I will probably read quite a bit of it in the next 20 hours until I leave to go back into less remote areas.
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It is 8:00 p.m., and it is beginning to darken outside. I went through the streets of town one more time about an hour ago. I looked to see the changes in the colors of the mountains as it darkens. Many of the natives were out on one particular street. They were all friendly with verbal greetings. I stopped at an empanada place and bought 8 empanadas. I ate 6 of them and gave the others to a guest here.

The facilities here are basic. I won´t bathe or shave until I get to Jujuy or Salta tomorrow night. I will brush my teeth in the backyard at a sink there. I am avoiding water in hopes I can go all night without having to use the toilet (which is nowhere near my room). I don´t know if people undress to their underwear in comunal rooms like this or keep their clothes on. I will go to bed first, I imagine. I think I will wear a t-shirt and boxer shorts, because I will sleep better than I would with my clothes on. I´ll also use my earplugs so that the nearby animals and my roommates will be less of a disturbance for me.

Walking: 8500 stpes (1271 aerobic stpes), 392 calories, 5.78 km (3 1/2 miles)

Friday, Jan. 21

It is sunny and beautiful today. I imagine I will zip the legs off my pants and take off my windbreaker and be quite comfortable.

I didn´t sleep well because of my cold. I couldn´t breathe easily. Combine that with the problem of less oxygen at such a high altitude, and I found myself occasionally gasping for air through my mouth since not enough was coming through my nose.

I went to stand in line to buy my ticket this morning. The crowd didn´t form so early. I was #3 in line, and I didn´t get there until 30 minutes before opening. I squatted while waiting, because I didn´t want the seat of my pants to get dirty. As a truck came around the corner, I raised up too fast. My legs had gone to sleep, and the oxygen couldn´t get to my head fast enough. I passed out for about a second. I was already coming to when I felt my rear hit the ground. It was due entinrely to the altitude, so I knew not to worry. But my legs tingled for 5 minutes before the blood circulation was back to normal. That must have been due the the low exygen levels, too.

I have six hours before the bus leaves. I will read and relax I guess. There´s really nothing to do here except to hike or relax.

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The time passed slowly. I read almost half of the book I started yesterday. It was too hot to be in the sun and too cool to be in the shade, so I alternated between the two. At 12:30, I went to lunch and had sort of an Andean version of osso bucco--thin slices of tail meat around the bone served with a stew of potatoes, onions, and carrots and also served with rice. I am not sure what animal the tail came from. I stopped back at my place to use the toilet (good I had my own paper) and pick up my luggage. I SLOWLY walked back downhill with it all, arriving just after the buses had arrived with their new loads of tourists. I sat there on the square for an hour until time for us to leave, watching the local kids try to hit each other with water balloons--one of the ways they celebrate Carnival here.

It was tiring making the zigzag return trip, but I was lucky. As soon as we pulled into Humahuaca, there was a bus ready to leave for Jujuy. Then there was bad luck. There is an Argentine checkpoint on the road similar to the inland checkpoints the U.S. has along the Mexican border. It only took them 2-3 minutes to check our bus, but we had the misfortune of being behind an international bus going from Bolivia to Buenos Aires. We had to wait our turn for 45 minutes while they checked each individual and his luggage from that bus.

It was 9:00 p.m. when we got here to Jujuy, and the streets were lined with people awaiting an event. I had to go to 3 hotels before finding an overpriced room about 4 blocks from the bus station. Unlike other hotels, they made me pay in advance, so that´s another sign that it isn´t the best establishment. I went back to the station to bug a ticket to Salta for tomorrow morning, and whatever the event had ben, it had already happened. It was probably a processional for a saint´s day. Anyway, the computer was down at one bus company, and the other had sold out its 9:00 a.m. bus. I will see if I can get there early enough for the 8:15 bus tomorrow. If not, I will probably have to wait until 11:00. I am so tired from my cold, too much sunshine, and 6 hours on buses that I don´t really care much about tomorrow right now.