Argentina (VIII.) - Salta, salt and the colourful Andes

I find air travel a confusing thing - in the morning you wear cap and gloves in the cold and desolate Tierra del Fuego at the end of the South American mainland, and in the evening you sweat in a skirt and sandals in the warm colonial Salta in the northwestern corner of Argentina.

Coming from all the unreal strange unlivable towns, Salta looked incredibly normal, pleasant and... well, real and livable. We loved Salta. 

As well as the liquid Salta. 

Originally, we had been planning to spend calm 8 days exploring the northwestern corner of Argentina and then fly straight back to Europe. But then we thought that if the Iguazú falls are so close (understand only 24 hours by bus), it would be a pity not to take the opportunity to see them. So at the end we cut the time in the area to 3 days and rented a car to see the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a mountain valley north of Salta.

If there's one word to describe the Quebrada de Humahuaca, it's "colourful". It's a stunning valley amid incredibly colourful mountains, with pretty villages and cactuses with a distinctly Andean feel to it.

Our first stop was Purmamarca...

... a small friendly village at some 2300m altitude... 

Purmamarca

... with a pretty local market (where, as usual, I wanted to buy everything and ended up buying nothing).

The following morning we set off east direction Salinas Grandes. Everything was immersed in low clouds with persistent rain...  

... but as we had to cross a mountain pass at 4170m into another valley, we hoped the weather would be better on the other side.

And true enough, as we crossed over, the rain stopped and new colourful views opened in front of us...

 

... and by the time we were reaching the Salinas, there was even some blue sky.

The Salinas Grandes is, as its own name indicates, a big salt plain, at an altitude of 4000m.

A vast space of white salt. Pretty impressive.

The salt is also being extracted from there for commercial purposes...

... and, as it seems, salt blocks can be used also for other purposes. We found the salted version of the Hansel and Gretel witch house. Entirely built of salt.

Yep, it is salt

I guess that the cold salty wind together with the altitude sun isn't all that good for the skin. After a while I felt I had salt all over me; the workers who were around, mostly selling small souvenirs made of salt blocks, wore a complete face mask, with holes only for the eyes and mouth. 

When we had enough salt, we turned back...

Different roadside signs than we have...

... and a different kiosk

... stopping at Purmamarca for lunch and more pretty views...

... and continued north in the Quebrada valley...

... up to Humahuaca, a lovely little town at 2900m altitude, with cobblestone streets and relaxed feel to it.

In the evening we climbed a small hill above Humahuaca to see the sunset.

On the last day, before returning to Salta...

... we stopped at Tilcara, a small village constituting a sort of hippie-centre in the valley.


Though Tilcara has an abundance of small restaurants and cafes, we rather headed out of the village...

... towards a small canyon with a waterfall at the end, called (somewhat over-confidently) Garganta del Diablo (devil's throat). I think that its original name El Chorro (stream - like a stream of water from a tap, for example) was more adequate. Still, it was a nice walk.

After three intensive days we were back in Salta, ready to set off towards our last stop - the Iguazú falls.

More on Argentina (and Chile) here and here.