Phew, what a couple of days. Making stupid decisions really takes it out of you. I´ve been travelling more or less continuously since La Paloma (i.e. only spend a few hours everywhere I go), and it´s been very tiring. From Santa Fe, I decided to save some money by taking an overnight bus to Santiago del Estero, which was supposed to have a couple of nice museums and be a gateway to the Andes. Unfortunately, my math really sucks and I ended up taking an 8 hour bus that got there at 5:30 AM. So, naturally, I sat in the bus station for 2 hours until the sun came up, stored my backpack, and headed off to explore the city. I still haven´t realized that when my guidebook describes a "good" museum in a town of 200,000, they are referring to about six high quality artifacts. Not really something to plan one´s travel around (though, to be fair, it was a nice break on the bus ride to Jujuy). I hit the Anthropology museum to see a dizzying array of funeral urns, and the Provincial History Museum. It turns out Santiago del Estero is the oldest city in Argentina. Here, again, I was treated to a personal tour of all the rooms and the historical facts of the founding of the city, etc. Still no idea what was going on. It sounded like they had seceded from Argentina at some stage, but I think they just managed to form their own Province. Ah well, no matter, there were some interesting pre-European artifacts.

Not wanting to get caught, yet again, on an overnight bus, I hopped a 3:00 to San Salvador de Jujuy, the northernmost city of any size in Argentina. Since it would by my first trip into the Andes, I made sure to get a seat upstairs and at the front, so I was sitting above the driver looking out the windshield. The terrain slowly started to transform, and I began to make some realizations about Argentina. Most of the areas I´d been travelling through were flat as a pancake and filled with fallow, brushy fields, or livestock. No forests to speak of. As we came to the first foothills of the Andes, some gorgeous forested stands on the hillsides showed up, and I was licking my chops for more. As we crested the top of the hill, I was instead treated to cacti and rocky soils. Talk about a moisture gradient! The rest of the trip, unfortuntely, consisted of agricultural fields in the more moist valleys, and arid vegetation on the hills. Forests will have to wait for another day. Still, the trip was stunning, as we were paralleled by ridgelines that would dwarf the mountains amongst which I previously lived.

On arriving in Jujuy around midnight, I was exhausted, and couldn´t even muster the energy to get some food. I literally walked across the street to a hotel and crashed. At 9:00 the following morning, I got up and grabbed a bus for Purmamarca. Purmamarca lies in the Humahuaca valley, a barren, but striking, river valley halfway between Jujuy and Bolivia. The town itself is tiny, and it was difficult to spend 7 hours there without being bored. There was a nice craft fair going on, but in a town of 2,000, there are only so many stands to see.
The real attraction here was the mountain formation directly behind the town which is made up of seven different colored strata. It was really amazing, especially as the sun began to set.
I actually enjoyed the day there as much as anywhere I´ve been. Because it was so isolated, I began walking down a dirt road behind the town and ended up in a desert environment, completely alone. There were cacti and magnificent red mountains surrounding the area (again, not a tree to be found).

I climbed a small hill which looked out over the city and ate my lunch in total solitude. Really magnificent. Unfortunately, I´m still a bit daft, and didn´t realize I was in fact in a desert, so naturally, I stayed too long, and once again came up sunburned. Not as bad as La Paloma, but bad enough. I´ll probably never learn.

My bus back to Jujuy was 1.5 hours late, and I was just about to look for a bed when it pulled up, packed to the gills with people. Two guys were sitting on the steps and the aisle was jammed with folks standing. Since it was only a one hour ride, I decided to smash in with them. Again, a dumb mistake. Normally, standing on a bus as it hurtles down mountain passes is reasonably uncomfortable, but when you stand 6´4", it means that one of your handles on the bus is the back of your neck, which is jammed into the ceiling. If nothing else, it gave everyone else who was stuck standing something to be grateful for, and it provided all those seated a good deal of entertainment.

After Jujuy, I headed south to Salta, the largest city in the northwest, to explore some of the Andes.

I spent the day yesterday getting to know the city a bit, and am headed out now to try and get on one of the highest trains in the world, the train to the clouds. It travels to over 4,000 meters (12,000+ feet). Hopefully, I´ll have a seat for this one.