Argentina, the north

Hello!!

hope all is good!!

been back from Brazil about 2 weeks now, decided to head to the north of Argentina as it is where there are the most indiginous and ´traditional´ villages.

I started my trip up north to Cordoba a student city! As you can imagine the night life was excellent!!
On a more cultural note, i visited the house Che Guevara grew up in!! It was suprising to me that he was from such an upper class family (im not sure why...). Also i was suprised when i saw his passport and it listed his skin and eye colour as well as his nose and face type! times have certainly changed!
I also did an amazing bike ride... although it involved more gliding down mountains than cycling!!

From Cordoba i headed up to Salta, suprisingly the nightlife here was also crazy. The best known attraction near Salta is the train to the clouds which travels across the north, unfortunatley it was closed for maintenance so i was unable to take it! However i was lucky enough to find three other people who wanted to rent a car and do the accompanying car route!!
It was absolutley gorgeous, we stopped literally every half an hour to take photos!!
I must apologise now for the likely number of photos of multicoloured mountains that will appear on my facebook page!!

After a couple of nights in Salta i headed further up north with one of the people i had shared the car with! We went to a village called Humahuaca (excellent name!!) it was really stunning as there were cactus´everywhere and i felt like a total stranger as all the children on the bus stared at me and my friend with big curious eyes!!
It was freezing at night and i was still cold with thermal pj´s (attractive i know...), 5 blankets, gloves, socks and a hat!

On the way up we came across a strike/road block! it was amazingly chilled compared to English strikes...the people had put bits of tree and car across the road and put up a flag and were just chilling on the side of the road...!

The following day we headed to another village called Purmamarca which has a famous 7 coloured mountain, it was beautiful!!
From here we went to some salt flats, it was crazily windy and we got blown over every time we tried to take a photo!!
The salt flats were bizare as it looked like it was covered in snow but then the floor had formations in it!
The guy who drove us up there lived in a village of 150 people!

We had wanted to go to another village the following day to check out some inca ruins but due to the amount of strikes/blocks we encountered we decided to head to a nearby town called Jujuy instead.
In Jujuy i had my favourite meal since i arrived in South America!! we found this weird bakery/cafe that did a 4 course veggie meal for 2.50! it was delicious and there was even a cake at the end that tasted like custard mmmm!

Last night i took my last big bus journey (20 hours...) back to Buenos Aires!
I leave for Australia next thursday! i can´t beleive how quickly time has gone and that i have less than a week here, eek!

I am going to head back and see my granny, uncles and cousin before i head off and try and see as many friends before i go!

will keep you updated, keep me updated to ;o)

lotsa love

Emz x x x

p.s. to those of you finished exams etc CONGRATULATIONS!!