Revolutionary Spirit in El Norte...

Revolutionary Spirit in El Norte
Heading north on the highways the Towns/cities seem to be a bit more revolutionary - or quicker to subvert the yoke of last centuries militarism. competing with statues of the typical busts of generals are monuments of a sculpted women reading to their child in the square at Hamahuaca. In San Salvador Juy Juy bare breasted pregnant women were rubbing their bellies just a block from Gral. San Martin. We pass a park that has dozens of very stylized wrought iron sculptures of athletes and velociraptor type birds. Lots more murals up here in the north too and the craft scene took a massive leap on quality as we approach Bolivia and since leaving Mendoza. Some items are now actually handmade and there seems to he more of an appreciation for artistry. Even the cuisine has retained some of north of the border Andean flavor.

A new housing project off both sides of the highway north of humahuaca had Che and another revolutionary (?) painted on every bricked in water tank above each of the hundred odd houses. Graffiti on the judicial and government offices say "justicia para el Condor" and some have stylized middle fingers raised and say basta or libre for some cause or someone  assumed to be falsely incarcerated. Artfully done political commentary: cutouts on cardboard about a foot square, strategically placed in high profile areas and then quickly sprayed over with a rattle can... Obviously not the addiction to surveillance cameras here as there is in the states.

Our ballistic beast of a bus we are currently bouncing around in sounds more like a tractor. Low gearing is needed to engage the steep twisty rocky washboards over the 4000 meter pass to Iruya. we snake at a slow pace through the rolling green treeless hills. The 20 odd school kids aged just 5 to 10 exited before we hit the dirt portion of our 3 hour plus 70km  journey. Maureen and I thought it a pretty invasive and insensitive act on the part of the tourist that kept videoing the school kids as they talked and pinched and poked each other on the bus.

More murals of Che and other heroes painted on the walls of the remote town of Iturbe. Just crossed the river that cuts through town. A couple feet deep and through it not over it. In the rainy season this place is cut off from the world... Just before entering the tiny Puebla of Chaupi Rodeo the driver blasted his air horn at a sizable heard of roadside guanaco.

As we weave through a piece of the quebrada Hamahuaca it is easy to see why it is a UNESCO world heritage site: non stop glimpses of abandoned houses, corrals, fields walled with stones for agriculture and tiny churches and cemeteries. For some 10 thousand years the area has had human activity. The area caught the eye, and was conquered and controlled by both the Inca and then the Spanish so they could glean the mineral and agricultural products from here and have the resources flow to key empire kingdoms/city centers. The area had long been a trade route to exchange items from the lake titcaca on the border of bolivia and Peru- popular item for the Inca was a hallucinogenic plant found in the jungle valleys stretching toward Juy Juy.

We drive over a 4000 meter the summit piled high with stones of travelers hoping for good luck, an apacheta, said to be a cultural left over from the Incan empire. Somewhat easier to imagine the Inca's 5000 mile sphere of control north to south when you see all the evidence of farming to support it, the endless trails... from the top to the bottom of the Andes which is essentially a line drown all the way down South America. Limited by the alpaca and the llama to carry and for eating, they were limited to the hypoxic heights.

Once landed in iruya it is immediatelly apparent that every other tourist desperate to get off the beaten path has landed here too so we decide to head for the hills. at the Milmahuasi hostel, the proprietor shared that inca ruins are atop a 5000 meter peak next to where we drove over the 4000 meter pass but too far away ti hike now. He reminisced about how beautiful it was and that it was a spot for ceremonies
and perhaps sacrifices. Other Inca ruins are a three hour hike away but closed to the public.

If we we are ambitious he suggests we hike 8 hours one way straight up switchbacks and across the plateau through a pass at well over 4000 meters to a village -or the village from the left fork just 4 hours one way. I tell him it's already one so we would be a bit rushed. "I always tell people to go to the villages but no one has ever done it. Just hike an hour to mirador el condor and watch for the birds."