Heaven
I made it to Tilcara this morning after 15 hours of being in transit. Wow, this area is beautiful. I´m in the dry Andes, where the mountains are green mixed with brown and red. I´ve only been here for a few hours and know that I´m going to spend a decent amount of time in this area. There is quite a bit to do, from ruins to hiking to horseback riding, etc. It is so beautiful here! And cheap, too! I had a late lunch and for less than $2, I had bread, soup, a main dish of pasta and chicken and a dessert. Sheesh, you can´t beat that!
One of the things I was worried about was altidude sickness. I´ve got very mild altitude sickness since I just got here. I had trouble hiking up the hill to the hostel with my backpacks on. But I would have that problem in 0 elevation as well :p Today, I´m going to take it easy. I think I learned from last year to not overdo it. Yeah. Plus, I´m sleepy as I didn´t get enough sleep on the bus, arg.
Gotta figure out what trips to do. Tomorrow, I may do a 1 km hike to the ruins of Pucara. That´s not too far. There are also 6 and 7km hikes from town to other spots, such as the Garganta del Diablo (no, not the one in Iguazù, but a much smaller one here) and to another place that´s supposed to be nice. Will save those for a little later. I´m going to look into a multi-day horseback riding/trekking trip to see what they have to offer. And there is rock climbing here, too! If the guide includes shoes (I sent mine back home with Sean), then I´ll do it. I can´t rock climb in hikers…ain´t gonna happen.
Ahhh…it is so beautiful here. I seem to be drawn to heavily indiginous areas. I don´t know why, but I´m fascinated with the culture. Also, the landscapes are gorgeous. From Tilcara, I can check out salinas, or salt flats like the ones in Uyuni. And the colored mountains, the high altitude lagunas with flamingos as well. Very similar landscape in some parts, as I´m not that far from Bolivia.
Tags: Tilcara, Travel
Marisa
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:55 pm
Sounds good. Looking forward to more pics.