Sonntag, 13. März 2011

salinas grandes y tilcara

in the sierras and mountains of salta there is gps working. cool, i mean of course but cool. out there in the wild with the lamas and you got a digital device working. well didtn help us cause we didnt use it at first and so lost our way on the highways. we noticed too late that we were not on the road to tilcara but up up and up to the salinas grandes.

well could be worse, we thought, and kept climbing up to a mountain pass, leading us to the salinas. the pass itself is more than 3000m high, and up there i can tell you its reeeally cold. dressed in shorts and t-shirt, cause in the desert its quite hot, i left the car up there and frrroze. fair enough, we didnt stay long. went on the lonely road to the salinas. salinas means salt lakes, which are located in the steppe in between the mountain passes between argentina and chile.

theres literally nothing out there. a looong straight road, that leads you right through the enormous salt lakes. looks like an ocean of white, shiny salt. and in the middle of the lake theres a small parking space, so tourists can stop, get out of the car and run around on the salt. i thought, as its called lake, there would be water. but noouu the salt is kinda hard and dry, the water might be unterneath. anyway, you can walk around on the salt without problem. and take your own peace of salt for having a prove youve been there. aside the road there is some indios, selling artesanias, such as ashtrays, lamas or other sculptures made of salt.

problem with the ashtray, you shouldn wash it. think about it.. yeiks. back on the road we went aaall the way back down the mountain to where we came from and this time took the other highway, direction tilcara. we arrived there at sunset, in a village slightly bigger than purmamaca, and at least three times as many tourists. amazing. holiday season in argentina and youngsters and hippies drift off to the sierra. cool. anyway, hard to find a hostel again, and finally we ended up in the house of jimena. really liberal household, resident hippies right there, and some backpackers to fresh it all up.

we stood all together two days in tilcara, a community of nature bound civilization-fleeing citizens, making music and artesanias, selling the to other travellers. guess they think they found paradise on earth. well i dont. its beautiful, and its nice and the people are friendly and liberal. but its not mekka. the music on the plaza is too mainstream and the youth culture of tilcara, all the kids from capital that ran off to search for good vibration actually got nothing to do with the indios in the hills breeding lamas.
anyway, its not as bad as the european teenagers partying in mendoza. its not a town built for tourists like calafate. it got something.. tilcara was one of my favorite spot after all, quiet and spiritual and of an incredible beauty. all the cactus around in the sierra and the colorful mountains around make a scene, uncomparable.

tilcara is part of the quebrada de humahuaca. this is a landscape in the state of jujuy, bizarre mountain formations, poor vegetation, rich fauna and impressive inhabitants. the indigenous people up there are merely short and dark and got a unbreakable pride. i think they dont care too much about the pop culture overtaking there town center, but they do welcome the tourists money they bring to town. so now there is an intresting co existence between capital kids and indios.
i said the mountains got colors. sadly thats not that obvious on the pictures, but for real the sunlight on the mountain ranges is a spectacular view. red, yellow, brown, grey, green, purple. the color comes from different minerals in the ground, that got such a high concentration in the quebrada that the mountains seem like painted.

two lazy, dreamy days later we packed all our stuff back in the car and took off to tucuman. there i had to say another good bye and get myself a bus ticket for the next day to capital. the guys had to get a friend from tucuman and head back aswell. mmm we meet again :)

anyway, these were the last days of my trip to the north. im still dreaming of cactus landscapes and llamas and short indios.