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Page 4
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QUEBRADAS, LLAMAS AND CACTUS...
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Page 4
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(Trip to North-West Argentina - June 23/July 8, 2001)
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On the next day, we started towards Purmamarca, driving by the Salinas Grandes (very close to the chiliean and bolivian borders), a huge salt deposit, about as hard and cold as ice. |
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A worker tried to sell us a bag of salt... |
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| There are many salt deposits in the area. In winter, the ground is frozen, but water is right under the salt : a friend of ours lost her shoe, in the summer ! |
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Purmamarca and its "Seven Colors Mountain" ! Marvelous village, very quiet, not too crowded by tourists. The handicraft market is open daily : a good place to buy alpaca ponchos, scarfs and sweaters, as well as ceramic wares and cactus wood artifacts. The prices are the same in all shops - but negotiable, and very reasonable ($20 for a poncho). |
We spent two nights in the house of Mrs Zelma Bustos, a very nice private home, with two very comfortable rooms (and hot water !). We also took our meals there.
And we went three times to the Seven Colours Mountain, to catch the light at various times of the day : a paradise !
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From Pumarmarca, we took the road to Abra Pampa. The road is new, wide, and asphalted : a dream !
We felt that the Quebrada de Humahuaca, and the village of Humahuaca, are not quite up to the descriptions we had read. Maybe it's because the new road does not quite follow the same path as the old one.
On the other hand, the village of Abra Pampa was a good surprise. There is a sign on a small hut, on the right at the entrance : "Tourism Office". Don't count on it : it is closed. We asked our way to Tinte Marcos (tel 3887 49 1081), in the gomeria on the left, almost in front of the Tourism Office. He picked up a (huge) screwdriver (?), jumped on his bike, and rode to the Tourism Office to get descriptive fliers about the area. To answer our questions, he then went in the back of his shop, and came back with a picture book of the high points of the Abra Pampa area ! To tell the truth, he does not have visitors very often : the last "tourists-photographers" were two italians - in February...
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And we left Abra Pampa for the Pozuelos lagoon (a little over one hour, on a good dirt road)...
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