Two weeks ago, I ventured out of Buenos Aires for the first time since I went to Iguazu in August. Our program split our group of 105 Estado Unidenses (god forbid we say Americanos) into two groups to travel on back-to-back weekends to the pueblito (small town) of Tilcara in the northern-most province of Jujuy that borders Chile and Bolivia.
At first, I was a bit disappointed to be traveling in the second group because most of my friends were in the first group, but in the end the weekend greatly exceeded my expectations. I met a lot of new people in the program and became friends with people who had previously been just acquaintances. When you are in a tiny town in the middle of Andes, you have a lot of quality time to just relax and enjoy the people around you.
The trip was a nice change of pace from Buenos Aires. There was smog-free air and spectacular mountain views. When we first got there, we explored the town and hit up the local feria (market) where we marveled at the llama scarves, llama themed sweaters, llama finger puppets…anything and everything llama. There were also these awesome kicks that were converse knock-offs with indigenous patterns. Throughout the weekend, we browsed the ferias in every town we went to and came back with everything from jewelry and clothes to wall hangings.
That night we had dinner on our own in town. A group of eight of us wandered off the main street and found a gem of a restaurant where we sampled various local specialties like tamales y papas andinas. After a delicious, typical Jujuy dinner, we decided to keep exploring what the pueblito had to offer. After running into a local named Pablo who was about our age, we ventured to what we thought was going to be a hole-in-the-wall bar, but in fact ended up being someone’s living room wet bar. Sketchy? Un poco, but the warm welcome we received from the friendly hostess put us at ease, and the subsequent litros she served us solidified our friendship. It turns out Pablo rented a room in her house, and we took the “mi casa es su casa” literally, adopting the place as our own personal bar.
Our second day, we went on a hike in the mountains of another gorgeous town nearby, but our third and last day in Tilcara was the best, despite several hours on an air-condition-less bus. We drove a few hours to reach Las Salinas, salt flats in a valley surrounded by the Andes. While salt production may not sound like the most picturesque sight, this place was unreal. The contrast between the bright, white salt flats and the massive mountains in the background is amazing- and provided a great backdrop for photos.
Our last night in Tilcara we all went to a peña (a restaurant and/or bar where folk music is played) in town. There was a live band- that reminded me of Saloun (RIP), I miss The Unforgiven already – that played upbeat regional music. We all joined some locals in dancing even though we failed miserably at trying to imitate their suave Argentine moves.
Over the course of our weekend getaway to Jujuy, we played soccer with the Andes as the backdrop, drank litros at a local’s house (or a small hostel, it was hard to tell), and danced to indigenous folk music at a peña. Just a casual finde (short for fin de semana which means weekend) in the mountains of Argentina.