Although I’m back in Buenos Aires now, I do want to post about my fantastic trip to Northern Argentina with my good friend and sidekick Cecilia. There’s a lot to say, so I’ll divide it into sections and include some relevant photos. So here goes with Day 1.

We left Buenos Aires very early in the morning and flew to Salta, the capital of the province of the same name. It’s a fairly bustling city, not particularly beautiful in itself but surrounded by mountains in the distance. I did a couple of sketches, including this one of the cathedral. I love this kind of ice cream pink they use for some of the old colonial buildings! (Sorry about the blue tone — had to take the photo in my kitchen in late afternoon.)

We also went to the High Mountain Museum of Archeology, where we saw those mummies that were discovered high up on the volcano called Llullaillaco in 1999. They were apparently children of noble families who were sacrificed to the mountain by the Incas 500 years ago, and preserved extraordinarily well by the temperature and altitude. I’ve only ever seen pictures of Egyptian mummies in their bandages, but this was totally different. The one they just call The Boy really affected me emotionally. He was apparently about three years old, and he is sitting with his knees bent and his head on them just like a little boy would. But he’s so small! I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a doll or a statue, but once was a real little person. So sad. We couldn’t take photos inside, but I took this one of the postcard I bought.

At night the mood changed, as we had been invited by a friend of a friend of a friend of Cecilia to a “peña” held in a place called La Casona del Molino. People sit at quite big communal tables (although everyone at our table knew each other). Some people bring guitars and other instruments and spontaneously start singing. All the musicians are very respectful of each other’s time and talent. Many of the songs were known to the locals (who made up most of the crowd as I don’t think it’s known to all the tourists) and there was lots of joining in. Quique, the boyfriend of our hostess, was one of the singers and he was great. Most of the music was mountain folkloric music, and one couple even got up and danced chacarera. Fabulous night and a great start to our trip.

Next morning we picked up our rental car early and set off for the first leg of our mountain adventure. Stay tuned.