Colorful, Dry, and Cold

A bit late, but the sizable minivan did come to pick me up for the tour. Pheeeew - didn't get scammed.

First stop - Purmamarca. Famous for its "seven-colored hill", this was the one place I wanted to see in northwest Argentina. So exciting when we drove in to get the first glimpse! The colors were absolutely stunning.

Not sure if there are exactly SEVEN colors as the name suggests, but didn't bother me at all. Isn't nature impressive?!?!?!We had about 30 minutes free time in the little town - Not enough time to climb the hill, yet too long to wander around town. Because the town itself is rather disappointing…a complete tourist trap with the usual souvenir stalls, unless you're into those. Which, as you are probably well aware of by now, fails to attract me.

Second stop - Pucara. I seriously didn't even know that this place existed! Ruins of a pre-Incan city. There was some resemblance to Machu Picchu (just the way the stones were laid out, I suppose), but in a totally different environment.Even though I had to pay to enter (not a surprise), I wasn't disappointed at all : ) And because the ruins are on top of an incline, I had fantastic views of the surrounding area. Love the cacti!!!

Last stop (at least for me) - Humahuaca. Of course, we didn't stop at Uquia on our way here as the tour agency promised me. Whatever. Couldn't be bothered to argue.

Before heading my own way, I decided to join the group for a late lunch. Eating tends to follow "the more the merrier" clause. So, we all filed into a tourist restaurant, and being tourists, most of us had the llama milanese. Myself included. On an aside - I am SOOOO impressed with my openness to food these days!!! I would've never considered going off my chicken, pork, and beef last year! Anyways, how was the llama??? Well, it was too deeply battered and fried that I couldn't really taste the llama. More bread crumb and oil. Haha.

After lunch, the minivan driver was nice enough to take me to the hostel. It was farther from the town center than I thought. Oh well. Bye bye, tour group.

On my own, I once again headed back into town to check out what's on offer there. Plus, the hostel room was waaaaay too cold to relax. I thought I'd head into the stores to buy some pasta for dinner. BUT….siesta time!!! Almost everything was closed from like 2-5pm!
I wandered around the mostly-dead town, and ended up in the main plaza. Passed a cute, interesting church:And walked up to the Monumento de la Independencia. Tons of dirty backpackers selling woven accessories lined the steps. Weird.
Hey, isn't this an awesome cactus?! It looks like it's giving the monument the middle finger…With my sightseeing done, I went into one of the few open cafes and had some nice hot drinks to pass the time away (book in hand, of course!). Until the stores reopened for the evening.

I managed to buy some pasta and tomatoes, and went back to my hostel for the night. There's no way I could lounge around in my room - too cold!!! The altitude here is high (~3,000m), so the nights are pretty chilly. Back to my long sleeves again : ( Anyways, I was doing some reading in the heated common room, and guess who I saw?!?!?! The old woman from back in Valparaiso during Xmas! This is the second person from there I've seen! Coincidence. We're heading the same direction (up into Bolivia), so I'll probably run into her again…

Final comment - Although I'm still technically in Argentina, I feel like I'm in Bolivia already. Not that I know what Bolivia looks like yet… not until tomorrow!