Thankyou MAAM

Trip Start Jun 05, 2007

131

Trip End Jun 2009

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Flag of Argentina Salta, Argentina
Monday, September 24, 2007

We arrived in Salta in the evening and the bus journey had been fairly uneventful, boarder formalities in Chile had been far less agonising - I guess they don`t really care if you are leaving! And Argentina could not have cared less - very different to our previous experience at Iguassu Falls. We had prebooked our accommodation and we got a taxi to the hostel - it was a lovely relaxed place where we had the use of a kitchen and they sold beer, so at least we could just relax. We had booked our onward ticket to Medoza whilst we are at the bus station and were surprised to find that the service was all booked up for sunday when we wanted to leave so had to get the bus for monday, we just hoped there would be enough to keep us there, it was really only supposed to be a stop over for the connecting bus. We were pleasantly surprised by the city, it was a busy city but still had a laid back feel, but I suppose this is Argentina after all. The main square was surrounded by bars, restaurants and cafes as well as the odd museum. We visited one which was full of pre-Columbine artefacts, there were some really interesting pieces here - pots, jugs, statues, pipes and the odd figure that had a sexual representation, one of which looked like it could have been bought from a Blackpool tack shop - Kev was quite taken with it! We then visited a museum dedicated to the mummies and artefacts that have been found at altitude - MAAM (museum of archeaology at altitude, can`t remember the exact name), although technically they aren`t really mummies, not in the egyptian sense anyway, they are preserved, frozen bodies.

Pre-columbine artefact1

This museum though was incredibly informative and gave information on the expeditions to find the mummies as well as the recovering, examination and research of the bodies as well as the societies that had made the sacrifices. The bodies are of children aged 15, 9 and 7 years old, two girls and one boy - the youngest, and they were sacrificed to appease the mountain gods. They children were chosen because they were from very wealthy families of high social standing and these children were deemed to be perfect - in health and aesthetically, it was seen to be an honour to be chosen. Indigenous people today, in this area, believe that those sacrifices cannot be condemned as they were for the greater good, they believe that the children were just left to sleep on the mountain and certainly weren`t murdered - it did make me wonder, however, why Juanita (in Arequipa, Peru) had a bloody great skull fracture and it was this that was the cause of her death! We learnt an awful lot at this museum and were really pleased we had made the trip, 2 of the bodies were on display, in display freezers, and once again I was blown away by how they looked as though they were sleeping - it feels very voyeristic to look so closely at this young girl who really should still be up on that mountain but equally the detail of her skin and hair is incredible and its difficult to walk away.
We spent the sunday on a tour through the valley of Cafayate and of course it involved some vineyards as it is here that the lovely white grape - torrentes, is grown so well - I don`t really like white wine but the torrentes was really tasty. The valley was once under water and what remains is a small river and quite dry soil, the mountains are awash with many coloured layers of the rock, and there are too many `mountains of 7 colours` to count. But here there is a great ampitheater that was once a waterfall and pool, the acoustics are great and the Argentinian Symphony Orchester have played here. And, of course, along the way there are many rocks to spot that have taken the form of one animal or another.
We wasted time before our bus journey to Mendoza the next day, it would be 16 hours and overnight again, yaay!