Hello everyone! It´s me, Irene. I´m taking over the hard job of writing a weblog during holidays.

After Marion left, I went on an excursion to Cachi and saw a lot of cactusses. Then north to San Salvador de Jujuy, a quite ugly town, where I had a nice hostel with a pool. Here in the north it´s all about the scenery, the cities and villages are not much special. I met some nice people in the hostel: 3 Argentines who I went for drinks with before they left for Peru; a woman from St Ignacio (where I was with Marion) who made me a pretty necklace; and a dutch girl who joined me on a trip in the collectivo (local bus) standing for 1 hr in between lots of women breastfeeding continuously.. We went to some Thermen, but it turned out to be a swimming pool filled with very warm natural mineral water from the mountains, interesting, but who wants to sit in a hot pool when the sun is out and it´s like 30 degrees? Lots of Argentines apparently.

This morning I went on to Maimará, a really really small town in between beautiful mountains that are called the painter´s pallet, because of all the different colours. The town is dusty and there´s not much going on, so I went to Tilcara where are some bars and a archeological site from pre-spanish times. My hostel is in Maimará and I seem to be the only guest, so I have no idea how I´m gonna spend the evening, but I´ll figure something out. Here in Tilcara seems to be a festival de enero (january) but I don´t see anything going on, maybe because it´s monday.

That´s all for now, tomorrow a trip to Purmamarca is planned, where I will see more colourfull mountains and a big salt plain.

Hasta luego chicos!

Besos