The start of a cultural experience...

After our volunteer experience we hitched a ride up to Salta, the largest city in northern Argentina. After all the decisions about our route and next steps, we decided that one of the most important things is to get to the BEACH!! So we booked a flight using miles from Lima, Peru to Columbia...knowing that we only had three weeks(ish) to make it through northern Argentina, Bolivia, and finally to Peru. Yes, it was fast in the grand scheme of our trip, but we`re ready to go somewhere warm. In the meantime though...

One of the things we've been missing is a bit of culture on this trip. Yes, you could argue that Argentina and Chile are different countries and thus have different cultures than the US, but realistically, they are very developed and the cultural differences are more like subtleties than major differences (Ok, fine, the asado and wine is amazing!). I can now safely say that we are starting to get into an area that is VERY different than home.

Salta is a very cool (but big) city in the north of Argentina known for its colonial architecture, surrounding amazing geographical features, their Peñas (traditional folkloric dancing, not to miss shows!), and their Salteñas (empanada-like snacks). Definitely a place you could hang out for awhile if you had the time. They have a crazy museum called MAAM here with mummies of children that were sacrificed by ancient tribes to "mother earth". The mummies were discovered by high altitude archeologists (i kid you not, it`s a real profession) at the top of some of the highest mountains in South America! Unfortunately, you can`t take pics in the museum, so you`ll have to come visit yourself.

The legislative building in Salta, we finally made it to some great colonial architecture 

The cathedral in the main square 

Another one, cathedral San Francisco

Northern Argentina is full of cool, quaint little villages that we could`ve spent a few weeks discovering, enjoying, hiking around, and hanging out with locals. Unfortunately since we were now on a time constraint we chose one city to check out - Tilcara. It turned out to be awesome. The town is a mecca for all sorts of artists in Argentina and the Andes, and there`s a ton of history in the surrounding hills as well. Not to mention it`s a quaint town with good tourist amenities...but not too many to make it bad!

The view through the bus window of a typical town in northern Argentina...notice all the houses are made out of mud

The quaint town of Tilcara

We were in Tilcara just before Semana Santa (Easter week, not Santa Claus...!) and there was a huge pilgrimage about to start. Evidently there is a very important religious spot located about 20 miles outside the city where thousands of people march to with full band instruments (imagine marching with a huge drum!), camping gear, and don`t forget the obligatory 2 liter bottle of Coke. It was obviously a surprise to us and pretty amazing to experience (imagine watching a full band perform as their hiking up the mountains!).

The "check-in"at the church before the pilgrimage began...

A snippet from the "pilgrimage"that thousands of people and bands (carrying all their instruments) were doing

Some ancient ruins that we visited outside of Tilcara

More ruins

Life is tough

Pretty dry here

Since the scenery was so beautiful we decided to go on a hike to a little waterfall...

The hike

The guide on our waterfall hike, Red

Looks like Arizona, huh?

It was definitely good times the few days we spent in the far north of Argentina, and we`d recommend it to anyone coming up here. Great food, lots of beautiful nature and architecture, and some real culture and history. Very different than the rest of the trip too! Now it`s on to an interesting and different adventure...Bolivia. Would`ve never thought we`d be heading there at the beginning of the trip, that`s for sure!