The Northern Argentian Andes, Last stop

 We have had a busy few days north of Salta in Jujuy province. We based ourselves out of a small town Purmamarca.  When we arrived they where having a festival allowing them to have fun and then bury the devil on Sunday, along with their costumes, this also involved dusting festival goers, lucky we avoided that part of the celebration.  





 


The first day we went to Hornocal, the 14 colors mountain.  We shared a 4x4 ride with a danish family. Michael, Signe and baby Helena.  Great day with magnificent scenery, lamas, mountains. 







The next day we walked up to the 7 colors mountain a short jaunt from the hotel, impressive as we were able to be closer.  


  


 





The  off we went to the salt flats, 60 km away!  What we didn’t realize was that the road went up a pass 4170 meters high!   







The salt flats where amazing they have 15000 trenches dug where the salt forms from the soil, volcanic, and they harvest        Of salt per year.  We thought we would eat be out long, so forgot hats and sunscreen resulting in our first sunburn of our trip. 







On our way to Salta we went to Tilcara to see the pre Ivan ruins dating back to the 6 century, the village was 20 hectares and situated at the meeting of 2 rivers.  The people began to raise lamas for food, clothing and weapons.  There is some controversy about the reconstruction that took place in the early 1900 if is accurate or not.  The first archeologist at the site disturbed many homes looking for skeletal remains as the people buried their dead in their homes.  






As the rain was coming we took the fast road instead of climbing over another high mountain pass as we encountered many roads on our trip that had just been cleared of mud, some higher than our car and only open to one way traffic.  Luckily we had arrived after the storm and did not encounter any road closures. 







Well we are on our way home today.  Hard to believe we will have been gone over 4 months.  Looking forward to seeing everyone and staying in one place.  We are basing ourselves out of Canmore, till Apr 25 so we can ski during the week, but will be making trips to Calgary and High River.


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