Our next stop was only 11km further up the road in Humahuaca, the largest settlement along the valley. It has cobblestone streets, that make for a bumpy ride, adobe houses and quaint plazas. The streets are narrow and we got caught up in a one way system. We parked up on the side of one of the narrow streets and Kirsten jumped out to go and take photos of one of the main attractions in the town.
At 12 noon, (or thereabouts - this is after all Argentina!) a life size figure of San Francisco Solano, the patron saint of the town, emerges from the clock tower. It happens every day and the saint is serenaded by Ave Maria which is played through the loudspeakers in the square. Once he returns to the clock tower, the music stops abruptly!
I went off to check out some campgrounds in the town. Our plan was to take a bus ride to the village of Iruya to save us driving along a bad road so we would need secure parking. I checked out several and found one that had an offer on at the moment - 2 nights for 90 pesos ($6) including hot showers.
When we drove there all of a sudden the offer was finishing the next day and we wouldn't get that price. This was after we had taken quite a time to turn through the narrow gates and get inside the area! So we had to back out again. We drove further up the sandy narrow lane, past another campground that had some kind of a large party going on and up to another one where there were also a lot of vehicles.
We were told that the owner wasn't there and we'd have to go down to the other campground we'd just passed. The man didn't know when the owner would return but said he usually comes later. So we decided to park up and wait.
Three hours later the owner still hadn't arrived but we had been joined by an Argentinian family on a 2 year trip in their motor home to Alaska and another motor home with a Guatemalan and US couple who were driving up to Guatemala. They told us the normal price is 30 pesos per person and no charge for the vehicle and we hoped they were right.
It turned out that they were right but the owner wasn't going to charge any of us for the first night because he wasn't there. Wonderful! We said goodbye to the others and then walked into town. We bought bus tickets for the following day to Iruya which cost 180 pesos each ($12) and takes 3 hours. We would need to confirm the return journey once we arrived in Iruya.
We walked to the main square and went into the church - we had missed the patron saint coming out at noon but we had heard the music. Then we climbed lots of steps up to the imposing Independence Monument made from 70 tonnes of bronze commemorating the Argentine War of Independence.
A demonstration was taking place at the monument - the local and indigenous people were protesting about a Canadian/Argentinian mine that is using up all the water and destroying the Reserva Natural Pozuelos further north from Humahuaca, and is also contaminating the water used by the indigenous people. We learned that despite there being a law against it the mining company is simply ignoring the law. We can only hope their protest is heard.
We got up just after 7am the following morning and packed a bag for our bus trip to Iruya. We locked up our motor home but also packed the money, passports and the hard drive with all our backups just in case. Along with our food and drinks it weighed about 8 kilos!
Our bus was scheduled to leave at 8-20am but left 10 minutes late - not bad! There were lots of empty seats but then there were a lot of stops in quick succession where we picked up a lot of people and about 30 children. The bus was overfull and the aisle was jammed!
Fortunately all of the children were dropped off at a school after about 40 minutes so that everyone else got seats. The first 24km were along the tarmac Ruta 9 heading north but then we turned off onto a gravel road for the next 50km. This gravel road was the reason we wanted to leave Winnietwo in Humahuaca and it proved to be a very wise decision.
It didn't take long before we hit the first water crossing. The road had been washed out and, had we been driving ourselves, we would have turned around. The bus managed to get through but it wasn't easy. There were at least 15 water crossings along the route which zigzagged uphill and crossed over the Abra del Condor, a 4,000m high mountain pass. The bus driver zoomed us around the corners, narrowly missing rocks and walls on his right and didn't bother slowing down in case there was oncoming traffic around the bend. There was no way he could have seen if anything was coming the other way so it was a bit hair raising to say the least!
There were a lot of switchbacks with water crossings in the corners and the driver obviously knows the road. There are 4 buses a day so I guess he's used to it. We did actually scrape some rocks on one bend but otherwise there wasn't a problem for the bus. However, we were very glad that we'd decided to leave Winnietwo behind!
Then we turned off along another gravel road to pick up passengers from small hamlets along the way. At one place along the road a little boy, who couldn't have been older than 4 years, stood alone on the side of the road and stuck out his hand for the bus. The driver actually stopped for him! The little boy waited for his mother who was running to catch the bus carrying a baby. She was obviously late and had sent her young son to flag down the bus!
We could see low cloud covering the valley ahead where Iruya was as we drove towards the village but by the time we got there it was sunny with blue skies. Our journey had taken just over 3 hours to get to the village of only 1,000 inhabitants with its cobblestone streets and colonial era buildings. We were surrounded by towering mountains.
We set off up a steep cobblestone street towards the church but before going inside we needed to confirm our return journey on the 3-15pm bus in a small office at the side of the church. We were given new tickets with our seat numbers on. After a short stop at the visitor centre we set off to find the toilet in a small square.
We had just under 4 hours to explore but it was more than enough. We walked up another steep street and went to take a look at the hillside cemetery and then walked up to the lookout point from where we got great views into the valley and above the town. We sat and ate the bread rolls we had brought with us before going back down to take a look inside the church. (No photos allowed.)
View of Iruya from the lookout point - 360° Panorama
(move mouse over panorama and click on the arrows)
We walked back towards the bus stop and further along the road to cross a swing bridge. We still had enough time to go back uphill through the village and out towards the river to see a small waterfall.
Iruya and the surrounding valley - 360° Panorama
(move mouse over panorama and click on the arrows)
We had a quick loo stop and then got on the bus and headed back. The bus was full again and took a shorter route, missing out all the small villages, up steep switchbacks and then back to Humahuaca.
Day trip to Iruya
We were really tired when we got back from almost 4 hours of steep roads carrying our heavy backpack. We made a quick stop at a bakery to get some bread and then started walking back to the campground. It started raining just as we got out of the bakery and the wind picked up a great deal.
We knew we wouldn't make it without getting very wet when, all of a sudden, there was a massive lightning strike about 100m away from us. It was an incredibly loud bang that shocked us both and also a man who was walking towards us. The rain immediately started pouring down and we looked around for shelter.
Kirsten really doesn't like lightning and we needed to find somewhere fast. The man told us to go to his mothers house which was just a few metres away! His mother was very gracious and allowed us to sit in her lounge which had a mud floor, 5 dogs, 6 cats, Polly the parrot and she also has 4 sons!
She told us that the rainy season normally finishes in February but this year its continuing well into March (it was already the 20th March). She also told us that there had been a volcano eruption and the resulting landslide had swept away numerous small houses. (We saw evidence of this later when we drove south which is in the next report.)
We stayed for about 40 minutes sitting out the heaviest of the rain and lightning and then walked the rest of the way back to Winnietwo in the drizzle. He had managed to survive our absence! It was after 8pm by the time we had made a meal and we were really tired - 6 hours on a bus, 4 hours walking up and down steep roads carrying 8kg and 40 minutes of conversation in Spanish. It's a good job we hadn't made the bed this morning because we would be getting back in it soon!
We had a day off the next day and Kirsten didn't get out of bed until almost 2pm!! I cleaned out the fridge and also cleaned our skylights as the mosquito net on one was suffering from high humidity and dust - the net wouldn't close properly. Once Kirsten got up she mended the fly sheet for our sliding door and I got our back doors open to get rid of all the dust we had accumulated.
It wasn't really a day off so we stayed for another night and I did two more loads of hand washing and we worked on the website.
