Trip Posadas to Salta

The long trip to Salta finished at around 7:30 am this morning. It had been a long night and we had covered about 1200 km. No food served this time, we were just allowed a quick stop in front of a diner. The food at this diner didn't even attract the backpackers so I just used the opportunity to go to a toilet where I didn't have to hold my nose with one hand and the toilet set down with the other.




We passed through many dumps that looked like the Australian equivalent of Back 'o Bourke, with some rundown shacks and skinny dogs. We usually stopped outside a rundown bus station with the bus driveway consisting of churned up mud.



There were 2 babies on the trip. The one immediately in front of us was a very chirpy little baby girl who seemed to be travelling with her mother and grandfather. Ma was Bolivian and Gramps was German. Then I saw Ma and Gramps kissing. Maureen and I thought up some salacious stories around it becoming more and more bizarre.



Today we explored Salta. It's a very pretty city in a valley surrounded by high mountains. It has the obligatory plaza in the middle called 9 de Julio. (Note to self: Check if there is a law that says all towns and cities have to have a central plaza called 9 de Julio)



We went to a museum that had some real Inca child sacrifice mummies. Three children had been sacrificed about 500 years ago by the Incas and recently found. They had been sacrificed in an elaborate ceremony starting with dressing the children in their finest gear and ending with walking them to the top of a high volcano over 6000 metres high, making them drink an alcoholic drink and then burying them alive. Grisly!

Today I leave you with an interesting butterfly in the process of having a drink.

San Ignacio Jesuit Mission

Your 2 intrepid travellers be moving on now from the top right of the country (Posadas) to the top right (Salta). We move from jungle and huge bodies of water to what will be dry high mountains on a 16 hour bus trip.




My report today is a interesting experiment in humanity. The Jesuit Missions. Around then end of 17th century, the Guarani indians were being kidnapped by the Portugese slavers and Spanish bandits so the Jesuits founded some missions, beautifully built and architected for the Guaranis. They kept the Guarani social structure intact and worked their beliefs in with Christian ones. The Jesuits leant Guarni and even though the Guaranis were supposed to learn Spanish, they in fact didn't. It was a form of communism because the Guaranis had no notion of private prorperty.



There was a section for workshops that made ironwork, stonework, woodwork, crafts and arts and musical instruments. A long covered ditch ran through the main areas and drained into the vegetable gardens to fertilise them. The working day was about 7 hours when back in Europe it was 12. The rest of the day was spent in music, worship and getting along with the family.



It was in the border territory between the Portuguese and the Spanish and the Guarani were good fighters and readily coped with firearms to win battles for the Spanish crown.



It was a form of Utopia.



Got soaking wet on way home. Walked through deep puddles in a torrential downpour on way back. Red clay colouring our socks. Raincoats no help at all, just dripped water into sodden shoes. Then had to stand in an air conditioned bus for 1 hour to get home. What us journeywomen have to do!



See photos



1. Guarani houses

2. Guarani Passion Flower

3. The fog rolls into the jungle

4 and 5 are the most interesting. We got an impromptu private tour by the guide who wanted to get out of the office and pointed this one out. It epitomises what happened to the missions when they got abandoned. A strangler fig grows right over a column. What you see is a row of columns and a tree in line. Look inside the tree and you see the column.

next news will be from Salta

Trip to Posadas

Got all waterfalled out eventually

 so now on to Posadas

Got an almond, chocolate and coffee body wrap. After all the gooey stuff was rubbed in they wrapped me in gladwrap like a mummy. Of course my nose started itching, first a bit and then maddeningly. It was torture.


PS Senora doesn't mean senior BTW