Quebrada de Humahuaca - Adventures in Northern Argentina

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Driving 3 hours from Salta to Purmamarca completely changed all perceptions on what we thought this part of Argentina would be like, and it was only the beginning. At an elevation of between 1,000-3,500 metres, the vast differences in height and climate allow desert to give way to subtropical rainforest and back again several times, cacti swapping for butterflies and forbidding red mountains for lush waterfalls and forest.

Locals returning from the market, Purmamarca

As well as the fantastic contrast of land and colour formations, the people are a major reason to visit Jujuy Province and the Quebrada (gorge) de Humahuaca, an area that extends up to the town of Humahuaca and beyond. The population is predominantly aboriginal and traditional in their way of living. There are a number of Inca ruins and the Aymara and Quechua people coexist peacefully. Goat herders in traditional dress are spotted often, locals carrying huge bundles of wood on their backs and flower-pickers as well. The people are reserved by nature but friendly, and to see their skill in happily hand-weaving exquisite ponchos from a gnarled-wood-weaving loom, inside a tiny adobe-mud hut with a dirt floor, is amazing.

Our hotel, overlooked by the Cerro de los Siete Colores

Purmamarca was the first town we visited; it is more a village and is overlooked by the spectacular Cerro de los Siete Colores, or Mountain of Seven Colours. Spoiler alert; in hindsight, this town was our favourite! It's tiny and so rustic; no sealed roads here and yet in our airy white-stone hotel we had (free) wifi, computer room, chapel (really!) and the absolute most delicious food, produced locally and clearly by a very talented chef. Quinoa (yes, the new 'superfood' you probably keep reading about), trout, super-fresh vegetables, citrus fruits, empanadas (more on those later) and of course llama meat are traditional fare and every meal we had was light and delicious. The village also has some really nice looking restaurants; I wish we had been able to stay longer as you need at least a full day & 2 nights to soak up the atmosphere. 

Adobe mud-brick houses and unpaved roads; yet there
is wifi access everywhere and great food!

In the village square a market is regularly held, with locals selling the aforementioned ponchos, brightly coloured rugs, souvenirs, jewellery, foods and whatever else is the current craze, Purmamarca-style. I bought gorgeous silver jewellery, hand-made llama-wool cushion covers, and wish I had bought a floor rug as it was so much cheaper here than when transported to Buenos Aires shops, and was just so exquisite. This is also where I met a 3-month old baby llama, dressed up for a day out and somehow I managed to summon all my willpower not to buy her too. However a baby llama is now high up on my list of coverted things. (Click here for photo from a previous post)
In one afternoon, we drove to Maimara, Tilcara, Humahuaca and back. Tilcara was the unexpected highlight, with a fantastic arts-and-crafts market in the square selling very nice alpaca-wool clothing, jewellery, nick-nacks, music, artwork etc. And....the empanadas. 

Town of Maimara

Ode to Empanadas

For the uninitiated, an empanada is similar to a pie or a pasty; pastry baked or fried with a filling of meat or cheese & onion (the two most traditional), chicken, ham & cheese, tuna, veggies or whatever else the chef decides that day. You can buy them all over Argentina and Chile however in Argentina, the best are said to be made around Salta. And they so are. Smaller than those we'd tried (a lot of) in Buenos Aires, and fried rather than baked, they were so flaky and juicy and tasty that I nearly fell off my chair. I have narrowed down my 2 favourite empanada sellers in the entire country to Tilcara and Cafayate, south of Salta.
Unfortunately Humahuaca, the town with the coolest name, was for us the disappointment. Bigger than the other towns, it is more touristy and doesn't have the 'untouched' feel of the other towns. However the drive there is utterly stunning, moving in to proper big-red-mountains-dotted-with-cacti-and-plunging-gorges territory.

Humahuaca, Purmamarca, Jujuy, Tilcara and Maimará - how can anyone resist with names like that..

Confession; I had heard that Northern Argentina was very scenic, stunning etc and I knew I wanted to explore it; but the main reason we chose to hire a car and drive north from Salta was because I loved the names of the tiny towns there. They sounded so exotic! The towns are in the extreme Northwest of Argentina in Jujuy Province, on the borders of Bolivia and Chile.

Jujuy (it's so much fun to pronounce - try coughing up a fur-ball and hooting like an owl at the same time and you'll get close) is also the largest town in the area with just under 300,000 inhabitants. All other towns in the region are small and the population is overwhelmingly indigenous, with traditional clothing, customs and housing still joyfully in evidence.

Wildflowers in Jujuy Province

Hiring a car and driving through this region proved to be a great decision, we could see more, stop just about every 30 seconds to take a photo of the incredible landscape we were passing, and get into the mindset of driving on the right-hand side of the road (which I'd never done before) without too much traffic around. As there are so few roads in the area it's hard to get lost and the people are very friendly so we decided if we did ever need help, it would only have been moments away.

Our brave little VW; who needs a 4WD?!

Tourism is very important but still quite new to the area; 80% of tourists are Argentine, 12% from other South American countries, 7% from Europe and therefore I'm guessing at this stage, far less than 1% Australian....but it's somewhere I can't recommend highly enough to anyone with a mild sense of adventure, a Spanish phrase book and a desire to discover a very beautiful, almost untouched part of the world.

Individual blog posts on the towns we discovered to follow...
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Salta - La Linda in name & nature - to Purmamarca

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Flying north from Mendoza to the north of Argentina, towards the border with Bolivia, expectations were that the country would turn from dry to drier, dustier, central-Australia-ish with a lot of striking red rock and not much else. We were wrong!

House of Jasmines, Salta

The area's main town, Salta itself is situated in quite amazing lush green plains, surrounded by not only stunning red mountains but also by rainforest, waterfalls, butterflies, cacti as far as the eye can see, the snow-capped Andes...you truely don't know what to expect around the next corner! La Linda, the beautiful, is no exaggeration.
We hired a car from Salta airport and drove to the very beautiful House of Jasmines, a Relais & Chateaux property that was an absolute treat for the senses. Surrounded by lush plains with green hills in the distance, our every whim was catered to and the pool was heated! Que fantastique!

Purmamarca and it's hill of seven colours

After a day of chic-ness, we hit the road to begin our big driving adventure, today to Purmamarca which is an almost indescribable little town overlooked by the hill of seven colours. There is a scenic route through a tropical rainforest with masses of twists & turns & some mild water-crossings which was beautiful, entertaining and took about 3 hours with a couple of photo-op stops along the way.

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