Visit Jujuy and you’ll be asked if you’ve seen the hill with seven colors. Then the one with 14 colors. Then, oddly, the colorless flatlands. It’s a Lucky Charms treasure hunt, and you’ll be chasing that rainbow all around the region.
I went on my own pursuit alongside a fellow traveler I’d met at my hostel in Salta. While road tripping around Jujuy, we crossed paths with a solo Argentine backpacker, a loosely acquainted group from Uruguay, a guy riding his motorcycle around the country, and two women celebrating having quit their jobs. (Felicidades, chicas!)
Even though I’d taken this trip to be alone, my companions turned out to be the most surprising treasure of all.
On the road to Jujuy
We drove into the northwest region of Argentina without a single plan other than to see and photograph as much as we possibly could. After a full morning of driving through winding viny forests and cactus-speckled plains, we stopped in Tilcara for lunch.
Keen on quinoa
There I devoured the world’s most Californian-friendly empanadas: baked and stuffed with goat cheese and quinoa. I soon discovered that many dishes in the north find their filling with the Golden State’s favorite seed. Later that day, I ate a plate of spaghetti and meatballs made of nothing other than quinoa.
Notwithstanding my happy little carb baby, that dinner will forever be ingrained in my memory as heartening. It was a stormy night in Tilcara and the power had gone out throughout the city. Our hostel — overrun with campers seeking shelter — barely accepted our reservation. We eventually finagled a couple of beds and headed out into the rain with our new roommates, a band of Uruguayan acquaintances who’d road tripped from Montevideo. The only restaurant open was a candlelit vegan place serving soup and the aforementioned quinoa pasta. We mishmash group of eight sat around the table, faces brightened by the tea lights, and laughed our way through dinner.
It was only upon leaving that we learned the restaurant usually has fluorescent overhead lights.
The hills are alive
In between the quinoa, we drove up to Humahuaca, the city with the famed 14-color mountain, and then down to Purmamarca, home to the seven-hued hill.
After weeks of Googling the Jujuy region, I envisioned it looking straight off She is Not Lost, a collection of photos from “female travelers finding their way,” perpetually in flattering poses while surrounded by fantastic scenery.
Ah hello, Expectation.
Still there, Expectation? Meet Reality.
Moral of the story (aside from minding your angles): Female travelers may also find their way into a lineup of cars en route to Las Salinas Grandes. Reality often entails more stop and go than expected.
We’d had grand plans of arriving early to the salt flats, beating the crowds and clouds and rain, but then a mudslide from the night before halted traffic for a solid two hours. So we hopped out of our car, scrambled up the hillside, “took in the view,” and then actually sat down and took in the view — impasse and all.
To the salt flats and beyond
Reality check #2.
Through the lens of Google Images, I’d seen Las Salinas Grandes innumerable times. So when we finally arrived to the swath of bright white, I felt less amazed than expected — in great part because I had expectations. In the photos it looked vast. Wild. But in reality, it felt akin to a big ice rink, each group of visitors spinning in their own spectacle. To be fair, it is a beautiful rink. And yes, I did very much enjoy our DIY photoshoot. We went, we photographed, we left.
Far more memorable was the drive over the mountain with the Danish guy who spoke just a bit of Spanish and the Argentine woman who’d studied English years ago. We all managed to communicate, in part thanks to a shared affinity for reggaeton, but mostly because there we were: three people from three distinct places stuck in one little car. The luckiest of charms.
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Beautiful pictures and thank you for sharing another one of your adventures💞 “Living the dream”