We had originally planned to travel back to Salta from Cafayate, spend the night there, and then take an 8 hour bus up to the border with Bolivia. However, upon rethinking, we decided that a day spent sitting on a bus for 8 hours, then having to march across a border crossing at high altitude (which we were not acclimatised to), followed by another 3 hour ride in order to get to somewhere worth staying in Bolivia sounded like a pile of crap. Instead, we decided to break this trip up by getting the hell out of Salta (forever tainted in my memories by the amount of toilet-hugging I did there) as soon as the bus arrived by hopping straight onto another bus for a 4 hour ride to the small town of Tilcara. At an altitude of almost 2500m, staying in Tilcara for a couple of days would give our bodies a chance to start acclimatising to lower oxygen levels before having to drag our asses across a national border at 3500m. Turns out that this was a great idea, because walking up even a slight incline for about 5 minutes with a backpack is really bloody hard when you have to make a conscious effort to tell your lungs keep working. This was also the first place we decided to totally wing it with accommodation, by pretty much opening a map ap once we got off the bus and showing up at the hostel with the best ratio of walking distance to offline preview of rating. Luckily, the first hostel we showed up at happened to have exactly 2 beds left, was decently priced, and the super nice guy who ran the place was putting on a really cheap dinner (which was thankfully vegetarian, unlike our dodgy hostel asado in Salta which may or may not have been what caused our food poisoning).
View of the mountains being swallowed by clouds from the Main Street in Tilcara
This tiny mama cat quickly ushered her kittens into the space behind the corrugated iron when she noticed me eyeing them up (I wasn't gonna steal them, I swear! *shifty eyed look*)
Cool Carnaval street art in Tilcara
Depressing street art describing, from what I understand, the shittiness of mining ruining people's lives and water supplies
Tilcara is a cute little town surrounded by the dramatic landscapes of the Quebrada de Humahuaca valley, and while firmly on the tourist trail for people travelling between Argentina and Bolivia, is reportedly smaller, cuter, and less full of touts than nearby Humahuaca, where the majority of tourists to this region stay. This area is full of history, and the first thing we decided to check out the next day was the Pucará, an archaeological site and reconstruction of a pre-Incan settlement just outside town. Having driven through a fair bit of Andean countryside, something which struck me was that from the outside, these buildings were really not hugely different from some of the houses currently in use, albeit with less plastering and not a solar panel in sight (a fairly common sight in the mountains, as the local government is currently testing the feasibility of providing solar energy to isolated communities). Being a reconstruction, the Pucará was not in itself that impressive, but the area redeemed itself by heavily featuring huge cacti and providing an excellent lookout point for the surrounding mountains.
For some inexplicable reason, there were llamas
Cacti standing over the "ruins"
Cactus flower!
This is what cactus roots look like. Something I never knew that I wanted to know but am now pleased with the knowledge.
A reconstruction of the altar where they used to make sacrifices (including of humans...)
Jeremy was still not feeling great, but he valiantly spent the afternoon dying of exposure while hiking to the melodramatically named Garganta del Diablo (throat of the devil) gorge with me. We figured walking around a lot at a not-really-even-that-high-comparatively altitude would prepare us for physical activity once we ascended further later on. Turns out the hardest part of this walk was not the altitude, but how powerful the sun becomes once the atmosphere is a bit thinner. The gorge itself was not overly impressive, but we walked through some interesting landscapes and had fun? excitement? not sure what the word is here… trying to build stepping stone bridges with a bunch of randoms while trying to cross one stream multiple times in order to reach a waterfall.
Climbing up! don't be fooled by the clouds, we felt like the sun and altitude were co-conspirators on a mission to destroy us
View of the Garganta del Diablo
Dorky waterfall selfie! Jeremy told me I could put this one up if I also put an especially dorky photo he took of me up, and then my iPad refused to read the SD card he put the photo on (dodged a bullet there!)
A nicer one of Jeremy
Water on the ground, water in the sky
Walking back to town, made easier by clouds and fear of possible heavy rainfall to come
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