North of Argentina: Jujuy - 6th to 9th December (Days 25 to 28)

On Thursday, when we woke up, breakfast was ready again thanks to Hugo's mom. We rented a car for 3 days at the agency FIT Car Rental, which was next to the central square of Salta. We were warned that the roads around Jujuy are very bumpy and rocks can hit the windows of the cars, so we chose the full insurance option. Our initial idea was to leave Salta in the morning and have lunch around San Salvador de Jujuy, but it was getting late and Hugo's mom convinced us to stay for lunch, cooking a nice pizza for us.

After lunch, we drove for around 3 hours to Purmamarca, a small village with a nice colourful mountain behind that gives it a special charm. In there we walked through Paseo de los Colorados, a road that starts in one side of the village and takes you around the colourful mountain for one hour, ending in the other side of the village. 

After the walk around Purmamarca it was getting dark, so we continued our journey for around 30 minutes to Tilcara, the village where we planned to sleep that night. For dinner, we were recommended a restaurant with local live music. The food was very nice, I tried Cazuela de Llama. We slept in a hostel that was inside a school.

Next morning we woke up early to explore to village and its surroundings. We first walked to Pucara de Tilcara, an ancient preincaican village in the top of a hill. With the same entrance fee we could also visit a small botanic garden, where we could play with la Piedra Camapana (the bell rock) and a small paleontology museum in the village.

After those visits, we got the car and headed to Garganta del Diablo. We thought it would be fast to get to, as it was only 8km away from the village, but the way was very steep and curved. In the way we saw a destroyed car. When we finally git there, we could see the deep gorge and a small waterfall after a 15 minutes walk.

After that, we left Tilcara and continued to the next village, Humahuaca. The most famous attraction there is Cerro Hornocal or Montana de los 14 colores, so we went straight there as soon as we arrived to the village. In the way up to the mountain, we picked up a hitchhiker that was going there as well. He was Paolo, an Italian guy who studied in Barcelona for a year and was travelling around South America just hitchhiking.

We finally slept in Humahuaca in the same hostel as Paolo. There we met Joan and Claudia who were planning a tour the next day to Inca Cueva, close to Azul Pampa, with an indigenous man called Faustino who wanted to show us an ancient ritual.

So next morning we had breakfast at the hostel and, as Faustino said that we should buy some food for the ritual and we didn't have time for it, we got some spare bread and coca leaves. At 9am we headed to Inca Cueva together with Joan, Claudia and Faustino in our car. Paolo and two French girls went in another car. After around 30 minutes drive, Faustino told us to stop in a side of the road by a sign post indicating the starting point to Inca Cueva. We started walking through a river and soon after Faustino stopped and started the ritual to Pachamama. He showed us different medicinal herbs and everyone in the group said a few words to thank Pachamama for everything that she give us. At the end of of the ritual we lighted some cigarettes and buried all the food in a hole that Faustino dag.

After the ritual, we continued our hike to Inca Cueva. We arrived there after about an hour walk and there another girl showed us the preincaican paintings. The paintings were cool but they were very deteriorated and there were plenty of other recent paints that spoil the original ones. We continued walking for another 30 minutes approx after the caves and that was the most amazing part of the hike. We arrived to an amazing oasis that looked like a natural amphitheatre and soon after to a small lake with a hole in the mountains with nice views through it. After that we went back to the main road and got the car to Humahuaca.

Back to Humahuaca around 16h, we said thanks and good bye to Faustino and had a late lunch with the group, empanadas, tamales and humitas. After the quick lunch we went up to Peñas Blancas lookout with the car to see the views over Humahuaca. After that we said goodbye to Paolo, Joan and Claudia and drove back to Tilcara to sleep in another hostel. For dinner we went to Kushka restaurant as per Joan's recommendation, and we had llama with black beer and tomato and cheese omelet. The food was amazing and for a very good price.

On Sunday morning, while having breakfast at the hostel we meet a couple of hitchhikers, one guy from Argentina and a girl from Poland. They wanted to go to Purmamarca, so we gave them a lift until there. We followed our way to Salinas Grandes, the biggest salt flats in Argentina, through curvy roads reaching a maximum altitude of 4170 meters. We reached Salinas Grandes after one hour and a half drive from Purmamarca. We just saw it from the road but didn't visited it as a guide was needed and didn't have much time.

In our way back to Salta we stopped in San Salvador de Jujuy to have lunch. Everything was closed due to the football match between River Plate and Boca Juniors, so we had a pizza in a shopping mall that was still open. When we arrived at Salta the football match was almost finishing, so we parked the car a few streets away from the main square as we were told that the fans of the winning team would invade the square and we couldn't move the car for the rest of the day. When we came back to the square the game was already over and River won, so it was crowded with football fans celebrating the victory.

We walked to Hugo's home, where we had dinner again with his family and chatted again for long. Finally, he gave us a lift to the bus terminal as it was getting late and we had to get a night bus at 1am from the bus terminal to our next destination, San Pedro de Atacama in Chile!