[015] Over Into Jujuy
I'm travelling in South America. Here's what I'm up to, some photos and other bits
I’m writing this from a sunny terrace in a small town in Jujuy, North Argentina. There’s a cream llama in the garden and the sprinklers are wetting him. He looks like a kitchen mop but I don’t think he minds.
The sun drops behind the mountains each day at six. Then the wind picks up and it’s pretty cold. It’s three thousand metres here and the mountains surrounding the town reach higher. They’re crumbly and dry. Erosion has shaped the red rock into magical columns and dust is kicked up by cars in the valley bottom where cactus live.
I arrived east of The Andes two weeks ago in Mendoza. The bus from Santiago was magical and the next day I cycled around the vineyards of Mendoza drinking the Malbecs. Mendoza streets are wide and green and five plazas make up the centre of the town. Kids run around on the shiny square tiles. The fountains and tall trees make the plaza a very calm place to sit on an afternoon.
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When I moved north to Salta the nightlife picked up. I walked with friends up ‘the strip’ like Zante 2012. Girls in boots and skirts smiled outside the peñas trying to attract you in. Groups of musicians and dancers were inside on stage and you could eat dinner while they played. Instead of fishbowls I drank Fernet and Coke which has a good herbal taste. The entertainers picked out gringos - i.e. me - so the locals could laugh at their bad dancing. It was mainly local music but they also played Gangnam Style and at least I knew the moves to this.
From Salta I rented a car with three British girls to leave the city. We’ve hiked jaw-dropping pinky red canyons, and we drove a dirt track to 4,300m to watch the sun set on ‘Cerro Catorce Colores’. I took up Campari, tonic, ice and lemon. Here a bottle in the supermarket is four quid which you can’t really argue with.
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We mainly drove, played music and took in the sights. I love driving in settings like this. The roads are fun, easy and new landscapes present themselves at each turn. I like that speaking is fun when you’re behind a wheel. The automatic part of my brain focuses on something it knows how to do, and conversation can feel easier. We talked about London things, music, restaurants, festivals, films. There’s an unstated easiness of being with British people. Language is natural - we know tone, sarcasm, memes, cultural references - and a dose of this feels very healthy when you’re in a foreign place.
The Salinas Grande salt flats are a natural feature turned photoshoot setting. You’ve seen the photos on instagram? You know, theres a dinosaur chasing you, or someone’s bending down to do a fart and it blows you all away, like little Borrowers. Well here I saw behind the curtain. Guys sit with props at their stations of wooden pallets. You approach one to commence your photo shoot. I was the first ‘big person’. He instructed me into shape and I got in a grump: get on your knees (salt flats are hard), hold your arms out (my triceps hurt), bend down a little (do I have to?). It’s hot and uncomfortable on the salt flats, but I shrugged off my grump, embraced my inner Borrower and we did the full works: hold a running pose, stand on a maté straw, do a big jump. ’Twas was good fun.
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The food up here is good too. It’s been less good in the south. Yes they do some incredible BBQ, and yes the gelato is good, and yes Choripan is delicious. But there’s a greater variety of vegetables and flavours and everything up here. They use corn, beans and maize a lot. I’ve had delicious Humita which is pounded maize wrapped in a corn husk and steamed. Locro is this lovely yellow stew with butterbeans, pumpkin and corn. On the street you can pick up delicious tortillas: briney unleavened bread cooked on embers and filled with melty cheese and corn.
I’m headed to Bolivia this week for a few weeks of Spanish school.
Hablemos!
George
P.S. One of the girls in the car is a friend of Katy J Pearson and it took me back one year when I was big on her album. It’s a goody.