Tilcara

Day 112 – The too secret swimming hole

Erin had committed to getting up in the morning to snap some shots of the sunrise colours over town (as I’d done the previous morning’s early duties by trying to keep up with Marvin).  She also took the opportunity afforded by being up early to do some trip coordinating with Anna who is coming to join us for a few weeks in April.

The sun starting to light up the hills behind Tilcara.

Once Erin had got some snaps and I’d finished my lie in we set of to embark on a bit of acclimatising, with a walk up to the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat).  First up a road, then up a much narrower and steeper trail, we were disappointed to reappear on the road and discover that our destination was not reserved exclusively for those who’d slogged uphill on foot.  The gorge and waterfall were however quite pretty, and to beat the crowds we headed upstream in search of a swimming hole.  A thirty minute bash up a gorge later and we came to a small waterfall that not only blocked out way, but also lacked a secret swimming hole!

Donkeys heading the other way down the trail.

The inconsiderate waterfall.

We were parched from the long walk uphill.

After lunch (Lamb stew with Andean potatoes for me, Traditional salad with Quinoa for Erin) Erin opted to head back to the hostel and catch up on some emails while I went and rented a dodgy old mountain bike to do some exploring.

First I headed for Pucará, a Pre-Columbian village perched on the hill overlooking town.  Some of the buildings had been restored but it was a little underwhelming in all.  Especially underwhelming was the huge ‘Turkish Pyramid’ monument dedicated to the original archaeologists and erected right at the top of the hill!

One of the reconstructed dwellings at Pucará.

 
Livestock corrals.

Next I battled into a strong headwind up the main road for a bout 45 minutes to get to Maimará and Paleta del Pintor (Painter’s Palette Hill) so I could snap some shots of the cemetery in front of the colourful hill.

 
Maimará Cemetery with Paleta del Pintor in the background.

The ride home was considerably easier with the wind at my tail.  That night one of Erin’s dog friends first let himself in through our front door before settling down to sleep on our front porch…

 

Day 113 -  Welcome to Bolivia

Our plan was to catch a bus to the border, walk across, and then get a train to Tupiza, from where we intended to book a tour of Bolivia’s South West Corner.  We were doing well until we got to the outskirts of La Quiaza (the final town north in Argentina, 5171km north of Ushuaia where we started over two months ago) where the road was blocked.  From what I could tell the locals had blocked the road to protest in favour of bilingual education in schools (Spanish & Quecha). 

All the buses pulled up by the side of the road short of the blockade.

So we had to walk the last 2km or so to the border, getting slightly lost in the process and being redirected by a concerned Argentine Police Officer.  Unlike the many Argentine-Chilean border crossing we’d undertaken in the past couple of months, almost all of the traffic crossing this border was on foot.  It seems that trucks stop short of the border and freight companies simply pay Bolivians to cart the stuff across the old rail bridge (the bridge without any customs or immigration checks).  They must get paid per load or even per kilogram because they carry an awful lot and some of them run in lines like ants back and forth!

[No photos sorry, police (and smugglers) tend to get touchy with people taking photos around international borders, to get a feel try it as you go through security at the airport next time!]

Argentine immigration was done in a matter of minutes, the Bolivian side of things was significantly slower, but did move quicker once we discovered the ‘gringo’ line.  It seems if we’d been Bolivian it would have taken hours to cross.  At the train station we were greeted with the news that the train was ‘muy, muy tarde’ or very, very late.  Ten hours late approximately, though the guy behind the counter didn’t even seem prepared to stand by that.  The train has the distinct advantage over the bus of running on rails, rather than barely existent, potholed, rutted, and severely corrugated dirt road.  However we weren’t willing to wait more than twelve hours for the luxury of a smooth ride, so we trudged back to the bus terminal, breaking the news to other backpackers on the way.

Bus tickets bought we went in search of lunch, where we got our first taste of Bolivian value.  Lunch consisted of Chicken Noodle Soup, Carrot Fritters, Chicken with Veggies and Orange Mousse.  It was so huge that Erin couldn’t finish hers despite the fact we’d missed breakfast.  It cost less than A$5 each!

Boarding the bus a woman pushed in front of Erin (quite aggressively) and then wouldn’t get out of the way.  This wasn’t the first time this had happened today, let alone this week, and after saying ‘permiso’ (excuse me) twice Erin snapped and gently pushed back.  The woman went psycho!  Yelling and screaming, waving her hands in air and calling her all the names under the sun.  It turned out that this time the woman wasn’t trying to secure a seat on the bus but collect the ‘terminal fee’, something which is normally charged as part of the ticket in the other countries we’d visited.  The woman had been napping on the job and had let half the bus on without paying, which is why she’d so frantically pushed in.  Anyway, we paid the fee and got onto the bus, leaving the woman to mutter to herself!

The bus was predictably old and suspension-less and the road predictably bumpy and at times scary.  Though they did appear to be realigning the road and sealing it, it was only about 5% complete (about another 70% was at various stages of completion, but most works looked practically abandoned). 

Our bus fared better than another which we passed in a ditch.

In Tupiza we managed to book ourselves with our preferred tour company on a tour departing the next day, before heading out for another cheap meal (probably the best pizza we’ve had so far in South America) and an early night.