North - Part 1 : Salta, Quebrada de Humahuaca & Tilcara.

Get ready for this, this article is huge. 

 This is the first part of our 2 weeks travel, so we have many to say. We have 3 destinations to describe here, but trust me (trust "us", in fact), they worth it. So prepare your eyes, and fasten your seatbelt.

Salta :

We went there by plane, no time to lose. Yeah, we had only 2 small weeks, and we are full of euros, as you know (and as touristic shop owner, too), or maybe not, and then, we had to rush there. Yeah, pictures from the plane. We all deserve it.

Sweet as !

So, this is Salta. Nice big town, fresher than BA, but well, this is "just" a city, so I won't eternize myself here. ... does this word even exist !!?

 

 

Don't mess with Holy Water !

Tilcara : 

After renting a car, we headed north, to Tilcara. I'm gonna put a few pictures from the trip, because ... well, the road is definitely a part of the trip, as you will see. 

Haha, this town was called "Volcán". Dunno why. 

 

The, we crossed Tumbaya. Incredible cemetary. Graveyard. Whatever, strange feeling, in this O2-less air, among cactuses and rocks. 

Oh, by the way. Leaving Salta, we saw avery peaceful looking lake and we decided to stop there. We met awesome equally peaceful people here, just waking up from their nighttime meditation, and entering in a transcendental communion with the lake. Detail-oriented guys.

To be honest, this first encounter was just great. The landscape was soooo quiet, so pure, so ... untouched. And thoses guys, damn ! So peaceful (yeah I said it twice), and welcoming. Awesome time with them, but we already had to leave. Imagine, as we did when they talked to us about this, at night, the stars above the lake, reflecting their light to you, with cows wandering here and there, in the silence and the freshness of the place. I wish we could spend 1 night here...

The Bros-mobile.

No, t'wasn't in Camargue, I'm definitely in Argentina.

Ah, the laurel. As you know, North of Argentina culminates at 6000+ meters of altitude, so we had to help our blood to charge itself of red globules and all the stuff. Chewing laurel helps, as it helped thousands of thousands of people  to cope with the lack of air thousands years ago. Sacred plant, so respect it. How to use it ? Mmh... I'm not sure I can describe it there. Anyway, if you can buy it, you already know how to use it, right ?

 

La Quebrada de Humahuaca :

Holy. Impressive part of the trip. Millions of years of wind, rain and dust carved the upper part of the stones of these mountains, and the tectonic moves charged themselves of the lower one. For the colors, well... I guess you don't mind if I don't describe it here, do you ? I'm not the best geologic expert ever. Just enjoy it.

Here are the colors, which slowly appeared as we went through the Quebrada...

At some point, we crossed the Capricorn Tropic. A discrete modern-looking triangular white stones tells it, but you have to pay attention. We did. Bicoz wi are french. 

Legendary place : the valley of the painter. ... because it looks like a paint palette, duh ! Yes it does. C'mon, chew laurel. 

I know you wondered : "How on Earth this awesome pair of incredible brothers could handle all this looooong road North !!?". Well, this wasn't exactly a Paris - Lille highway : 

Look at the mountains, ladies, the mountain........

La Garganta del Diablo : Another part of our travel was crossing the Garganta del Diablo. The Devil's Throat. Yeah, we did this. We are fearless and temerity full. Maybe too much, sometimes, as you'll see pretty soon. Oh, and leaving the Hostel we slept in, we met a nice young Peruvian Girl we took with us in the Garganta.

Talking about temerity...

Ruins. 

 Rabbit. 

Cocktus. HAHAHAHAHA I'm sooooo fun !

As I told before, about temerity. Mmmmh, well, we got lost, at some point. Well, not "lost" but... how to put this ? We knew which place we wanted to reach, we could sometimes see it from far, but we didn't know exactly which was the perfect and normal way to go there, and we had the feeling we were, in fact, going, well, not "in the wrong way", but by all means, not in the right one. ... Yeah, we were lost. 

Full of wonders = wonderful ? 

Erm... Mum, don't watch this picture. In fact, what happened with the way to the Cascada we were looking for !? We had to turn left, at some point, and we didn't. So we arrived waaaaay too much above and on the right of the Cascada. So we came back using the way of the water. ... When there is water. There wasn't. Which was, by the way, a good thing. Rocks get slippery when they are wet. These ones weren't, thank God, Christ, Buddha, and Cliff Hanger.

So we had to walk in that kind of way. This doesn't really look like a normal touristic safe path. But you know I don't mind taking other ways.  Sometimes.

Yes, finally, we found the Cascada. 

... and enjoyed it. 

Pukara : 

 Bueeeeno, after this 5h walk in stones, walls, and bright sunlight, we visited Pukara, a very old city, in ruins now.

Rude cactuses...

 

Indians used to bury their corpses (I mean, the ones of their friends and family, not themselves... anyway) in holes in the ground. I found a hand lying there. No, I'm joking. -_-

The night fell quite quickly and, funny enough, we felt tired. So we went to bed. This was awesome, too.

The day after, we went to