¡Viva Jujuy!

After my birthday, I forged further north, into Argentines most mysterious and northernmost province of Jujuy.

Jujuy is most known for its Andean way of life and its stunning landscapes, but I learned quickly that the part of Jujuy that you see when you look it up on Google is only a small portion of the province.

I came to Jujuy to see vibrant rock formations, high-altitude mountain towns, and vegetation adapted for the harsh, arid Andes. And I got that, but I do want to set expectations for anyone traveling there. Much of the province is not like this. Jujuy capital, for example, it set in the same green, lush, rolling hills that Salta is in. Greenery and trees—not cacti and suculents—are everywhere in the city and the surroundings. But as you move north of Jujuy Capital and towards the Quebrada de Humahuaca, that's really where the magic starts.

The buses climb the very steady rise up into the Quebrada (gorge); it's so steady that I didn't even notice the altitude gain. There's no switchbacks or jarringly steep roads. It's just one, long road rising at just a few degrees over many miles.

I arrived at the bus station in Tilcara, and immediately, it felt different. It was dusty, and instead of running water, most houses had a water tank on their roofs. The buildings were all adobe, and most notably, everywhere I looked were stunning cliff walls and mountain faces, carved into magnificent patterns and displaying bright colors. It was like I'd been transformed into an alien world, just a few hours from the Salta la Linda that I'd grown accustomed to. I crossed the bridge out of town, finding my hostel on the outskirts of what is considered Tilcara.

Tilcara is the largest city in the Quebrada. Located at a more modest altitude than some of the towns higher up, Tilcara was able to grow into a larger tourist and local hub. Nowadays, the town, I would say, is split in two. There's two streets running parallel, running into the main plaza. Then, there's the rest of the town. Those two streets have souvenir shops, restaurants, artisan workshops, and even local markets and local convenience stores. It's surprisingly busy for how remote the town is, and it feels very targeted towards tourists. Then, the rest of the city, climbing into the steep hillsides, are purely residential. I searched hard for a local restaurant curried deep into the residential part of town, but was completely unsuccessful. Either locals don't dine out, or when they do, they come into the manicured tourist part of town and eat the inflated prices. So, defeated, I embraced my inner tourist for my three days in the Quebrada.

I stopped to try some local food. Though I still vowed not to eat any humitas or tamales after my poor experience in Salta, I still had more Andean food to try! And this time, it was properly in the Andes. I ordered two llama empanadas and two quinoa and goat cheese empanadas. I learned later that the quinoa and cheese empanadas are a fairly recent invention, made to cater to vegetarians, but still, quinoa is an ancient staple food of the Andean diet.

As I'd remembered from Peru, llama meat doesn't taste too different from beef. In this restaurant in particular, it was a little tougher than beef, but I think that it was just overcooked or maybe a poor cut. The empanadas indeed hit the spot, and fueled me for my afternoon of high-altitude discovery.

I first hit up the Pucará, which is an ancient pre-Incan village, moderately reconstructed to show the way of life of the indigenous (and I mean truly indigenous) population. Of course, as the Incan empire was quite fierce about their domination of the continent, the Pucará had long been reduced to rubble before the Spanish even knew that the Americas existed.

The form of the city was quite similar to, say, Machu Picchu. Tight homes made from carefully arranged rock climbing up and down the hill, with ritual buildings in the center. One thing I definitely did not see at Machu Picchu, though, was that the framing on the roofs of the houses was made from dried cactus—a tradition that's continued into the architecture of today's modern Tilcara. It's got this brilliant white base, with black spots where the needles used to be, and its appearance is incredibly striking.

At the top of the hill is a pyramid. I'd seen pictures of this monument online, imagining that it's some ritual item made by the natives of the town. It's not. It was constructed in the early 20th century, when the prevailing belief was that nobody from this ethnic group remains. So, they constructed a pyramid in a style mixing Quechua, Aztec, and Mayan architecture, hoping that it would get some sort of "Native American" aesthetic across. Starting in 1994, though, a large push in Argentine academia has been pushing for the recognition that the people living in these places now do have meaningful roots to the native Tilcarans who lived in the Pucará centuries ago, and are capable of continuing on the architectural traditions of their ancestors. Argentina seems to only be recently coming to terms with just how imbedded native traditions are, and deep its peoples' native roots run. I feel that most people acknowledge that Quechua culture has a significant influence on the national psyche, but I think they are just starting to understand that people in the most far-flung provinces have traditions dating further back, pre-Inca. And only now are there explorations into what that means and how they can be celebrated.

After my visit to the Pucará, I climbed the hill to get a nice view of Tilcara, before heading back to the hostel for a quick rest up before my famous night a Peña Munay, where I'd become a local hero, singing Viva Jujuy in the heart of the Quebrada.

For dinner, during the peña performance, I had a cazuela de llama. I'd been introduced to cazuela, a thin soup packed with indigenous ingredients such as choclo (large-eared corn) and Andean potatoes, back in Chile actually. It's quite a typical dish in the Santiago and Valparaíso regions, and I was surprised to see it deeply typical here as well. The llama meat this time was much more like stew meat, shredding easily. The soup was delicious, and great for a cold night at altitude.

After my big night at the peña, I continued further north to the namesake of the Quebrada: the town of Humahuaca.

Humahuaca, a major town in its own right, sits at nearly 10,000 feet of elevation. It too has a tourist town and a local town, though I found the local town to have much more life than that of Tilcara. The tourist town is marked by cobblestone streets, well-maintained façades with arts and crafts spilling out onto the streets. Though not as aggressive as Marrakesh or Cambodia, the shopkeepers definitely try to get your attention and strike up conversation in the hopes that you'd buy their textile or llama plushie instead of the exact same one from next door.

The main square is very nice, though also filled with an artisan market, and therefore, you always feel a little on edge, unable to completely relax. The white churches pop against the red and brown tones of the rest of the town, and behind the main square, a grand staircase leads to a monument dedicated to the liberators of South America. The historic center of the town is, truly, magnificently beautiful and atmospheric to wander.

I decided to get a taste of local life here at the heart of the Quebrada, so I crossed the main road separating tourist-town from local-ville. I stumbled upon a very long, skinny market, where locals were selling, just, everyday objects. Things I didn't need—just nondescript clothes and electronics, but day-to-day items nonetheless.

The market was dusty, covered in the dry, high-altitude desert dirt. It actually reminded me much of the markets in Kyrgyzstan—certianly local, a little dusty, but charming and filled with life. I ended up sitting down at a restaurant, having the best bang-for-my-buck meal, without a tourist in sight. I was only five minutes from the main plaza, where the same meal would cost me easily three times as much, but clearly, tucked in this weird corner of the local market, not many tourists ever make it out this far.

I did pay the price in sketchiness, though, as I saw two dogs attack each other, and get an innocent human bystander trapped in the middle of their brawl. Though this seemed to be a common occurrence, given the nonchalance of the server who broke up the fight, all the patrons were spooked by the sudden crazy violence.

After lunch, I made my way to the upper part of the city, a neighborhood with very few shops, many unfinished homes, and an overall abandoned feeling. It didn't take long to get the vibe there, but I am glad I at least checked it out.

Then, I took a 4x4 to the Hornocal: Humahuaca's famous Mountain of 14 Colors. On the way, we passed by herds of vicuñas (rare llama relatives famed for their prized wool), and, of course, took a few scenic stops. But the Hornocal surpassed my expectations. It was magnificently beautiful, and though I didn't attempt to count 14 colors, it did boast an impressive display of band after band of earthy, mineral tones. Unlike, say, the Rainbow Mountain in Peru, which shares its colorful tones with thousands of visitors, I got these colors nearly to myself. There were only a few other people at the Hornocal with me, and three of whom shared the 4x4 with me.

By the time I got back from the viewpoint, I was exhausted and ready to get to bed. Four consecutive nights of peñas, horseback riding, exploration at altitude, and early buses had taken a toll on me. So I grabbed the hour-long bus back to Tilcara, did the Sunday crossword over Zoom with Dad and Grandma, and called it a well-earned night.

I intended on my third day to visit the third famous town in the Quebrada, Purmamarca, but after befriending some of the people in my hostel, we decided to go on a hike to a waterfall instead. Frankly, I don't have much to say. The hike was nice, and the scenery is just more of the stunning colors and bizarre erosion formations that I'd been seeing for the last several days. But it was certainly a nice way to spend the morning.

I headed to the capital of Jujuy, San Salvador, as I had a flight from there the next morning. There's not too much to do as a tourist in the city—most shops just sell regular clothes and regular merchandise—but it's still shockingly nice. For an overlooked city in an overlooked province, far out in the corner of Argentina, nearly a day's drive from Buenos Aires, I was amazed by how clean, modern, and pretty San Salvador de Jujuy was. The orange trees lining the streets were in full bloom, the park running along the river is gorgeous, and just like Salta, much of the city is still Spanish colonial, with the buildings well-maintained. I was thoroughly impressed by the city, and truthfully, if I'm back in Argentina again, I would go ahead and give it at least a full day, if not two, to see what it has to offer. I've heard that this is where the native traditions mix most strongly and most meaningfully with a modern lifestyle, and I'd love to see that over a weekend instead of on a dead Monday night.

To get a sense of how few tourists pass through this city, my cab driver to the airport said that in his 15 years of driving, he's only driven three Americans before. And all three of them were Mormon missionaries. So, he was surprised to learn that I was just here because I wanted to be.

Though I left Jujuy without as much pure involvement in native culture not curated for the tourist eye than I was looking for, I still greatly enjoyed my days there. My days spent marveling at the landscapes, wandering around dusty, high-altitude towns, eating native food, participating in native music traditions, and walking in and out of souvenir shops selling gifts that, truly, are products of a native lifestyle. I just was hoping for something a little more real—a little less curated for tourists, even if those tourists are primarily domestic. I still had a wonderful time in Jujuy, and am so glad I got a chance to explore this far-out corner of Argentina.