La linda

La linda, the nickname of Salta province, located in the north-western part of Argentina means "the pretty one" and one day I decided to go there and see if it lives up to its name.

The landscape varies wildly across Salta and its surrounding provinces. From green forests and mountains to desert-ish landscapes and salt fields just behind the corner, this could be the most diverse part of the country I've seen.

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Easter this year will be more interesting

We came to Salta some days before Easter, which had its positive and negative sides. On the negative side, everyone seem to travel during this period and the closer it was getting to Easter the more difficult it was to find a place to sleep, especially in the city. 

We've also had a chance to see local traditions which emerged around the way Easter is being celebrated. Some of them looked more or less like what one would expect in the West, especially in the city of Salta where we started. Others were more unusual as we were to see soon in the north.

Traditional outfits can be seen on the streets of Salta and it's hard to argue that we're close to the Andes.

After just a couple of days in the city, we went north to a small town called Huahamarca. This is a decidedly dry part of the country, leaving the green mountains of Salta we entered the rugged landscapes of Jujuy province, from where we planned to slowly retrace the way back to Salta city. 

There's something about devils in this part of the province, and later on, I learned about the very special way carnival is celebrated here. I'm hoping to one day return during the carnival, meanwhile, devils on different levels of spookiness are everywhere. 

There's a story that's waiting to be told about the art of containers for rubbish in Argentina and surrounding countries, and it's probably worth its own blog entry or at least an album, but for the time being, I'll just include this, to confirm that we're surrounded by devils here. 

Now that we're outside of cities in small local communities Easter traditions are getting more interesting. Above a town called Tilcara, there's a mountain with a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary which draws thousands of pilgrims during Easter. They would get a blessing in the church in Tilcara first and they would march on.

A couple of days later they're back with the statue of the Virgin itself, and the celebration is in the full swing.

Jujuy

The province north of Salta, called Jujuy, is full of small towns which feel more like Peru than Argentina.

It feels pretty remote, most of the area is very dry and mountainous, hot and empty.

One can find a random display of fashion here and there, but otherwise, it's very relaxed.

The cuisine in this part of the country is also very different from typical steak and wine in other parts of Argentina. 

The area feels very safe compared to some other places in South America, perhaps because it's all well-protected ;-)

A town called Purmamarca is famous for its colorful mountains, most notably The Hill of Seven Colours. This place is pretty popular with many people coming there to take a photo from a viewpoint or have a short hike in the area.

I think it gets even better once you go deeper into the mountains. A couple of hour's hike from Purmamarca one can find many more colorful hills to be enjoyed without crowds. 

Along the way, flora gets quite interesting. Seeing this I'd never have guessed it's still Argentina. 

And they're getting really tall these cactuses! 

There's one more "hidden" place in this part of the country. Most people would have heard of Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. In fact, one of the plans for this trip included a quick jump over the border to see them. Plans tend to change though, and instead of Uyuni we decided to go to its local version, Salinas Grandes. The road there took some time, I was obviously dreaming of having my bike with me, but what was on the other side of the hill didn't look like anything I'd seen before. 

Salinas Grandes is perhaps smaller than Uyuni, but to be very honest, I don't even know if I would have noticed it - at these scales differences start to blur. Salt fields are actually used to extract salt, and this trench is where salt crystallizes. 

Later on, trucks are shipping it away. It looks like snow, but the weather feels more like a desert - I wouldn't want to go there without sunscreen and sunglasses. 

On their way back trucks have to be mindful of lamas. Because of the Argentinian accent, it took me a while to understand what "zhama" means. Now I know. 

Sometimes they would even visit towns around Salta.

But those which are not careful can also end up in a local market.

In the mountains around Salta

Not all the mountains in the area are as dry as in Jujuy. It gets greener in the range accessible from Salta city itself. 

It's been a while since I did any multi-day hike, so having a couple of free days in Salta I decided to hike along the Camino de las Antenas.

The hike was beautiful, even if not easy, with almost 30km on the first day, a 2km altitude gain, and the need to carry all the supplies.

Camping on the top I had the best beer I tried in my life (probably because (a) I was super-tired and (b) I carried it with me for the whole day). It quickly got cold after dark, so I went to sleep early...

... to wake up to something like this in the morning. It felt exactly as it looks.

On my morning walk with clouds below me, I discovered that I'm not alone there

There's been plenty of horses up there, seemingly enjoying the sun as much as I did.

Looks like some animals also stayed there forever.

For the remaining part of the day I was going down back to Salta and the weather was very different than the day before. I didn't know one can get that wet walking in the clouds.

The path has become greener, if there was a path there.

Tired, wet, and happy I emerged from the cloud to devour one more big Argentinian steak before heading back.