Leah in South America: Things I forgot to write about part 3: SALTAAAA

(really, "Northwest Argentina" is more accurate but that doesn't have the same ring)

Keeping with the "go on a trip and write about it over a month later" theme, here's a post about my 7-day trip to the northwest of the country. Almost everyone who spends time in Buenos Aires visits Mendoza and Iguazu Falls (maybe Patagonia too), but the provinces of Salta and Jujuy are a lot more obscure. Salta and Jujuy (pronounced hoo-hooey, FYI, which makes it the most fun) are areas with absolutely insane geography -- painted mountains next to lush green landscapes next to intense canyon formations next to sweeping salt flats in a cluster of NWern cities. I traveled with my roomie Kat and friends Matt, Chris, and Elizabeth -- the first three took the TEFL class the month after me, and Elizabeth was visiting Chris from Delaware. The trip to Salta itself is 22 hours by bus. Our bus did not serve food, but it did show four extremely inappropriate films in a row -- Taken, about being kidnapped in a foreign country, The Transporter 2 and Blood Diamond, both incredibly violent, and The Bank Job, which has several scenes of full-frontal nudity. This was on a bus full o'kids and old women.

After a first day/night in Salta uneventful save a sudden downpour (which would come to be how I remembered the city of Salta... keep reading) and the viewing of an excavated body at the city's archeological museum (Chris and Elizabeth are archaeologists so they were absolutely enchanted, and I got a discount admission with my old student ID, so really good time all around), we woke up on the morning of New Years' Eve and rented a car to drive north. Chris drove stick and five people splitting car-rental costs made it even cheaper than a bus, so we rolled out of Salta in our tiny white Chevy - after stocking up on NYE supplies, of course - and drove to the town of Tilcara.

Salta has a pink cathedral.

We first encounter our hawt car.

The trip took us five hours, though it can't have been more than 200km away, due to the incredible climb/wind of the road -- in this single journey, I both learned what "switchback" meant and experienced carsickness for the first time (just nausea, but I had to close my book!). We also encountered cows in the road twice and goats three times. The scenery went from lush green mountains that looked as though a pterodactyl could fly out at any minute to dry, painted mountains with actual swirls of different browns, pinks, purples, even blues. Several times we got out of the car for photo ops (just one perk to renting instead of bussing!) or to just gape for a while.

We finally reached Tilcara, an tiny Andean mountain town with dirt streets, where every restaurant touted llama as their specialty. We went to a late NYE dinner where we sat in the garden (eating outside! on New Years!) and got llama meals and local beer. We were still eating and drinking when midnight arrived and the fireworks started. Argentina has absolutely no fireworks laws, so from every direction for about an hour the sky lit up to celebrate 2010. The celebration was still going on when we made our way from the restaurant to the square, where live music was playing and young people folk-danced. Upon returning to our hostel, we discovered its backyard was also a campground housing hundreds of dreadlocked Argentine hippies. We moved outside to celebrate with them around their enormous campfire -- highlights of New Years' early morning included an impromptu pan-flute off and a girl with a painted face and short shorts dancing hypnotically for literally four hours straight (pretty sure she was on E?). It would not have been hard at all to beat NYE 2k9 (snowed in sitting at home), but this went above and beyond.