Pucará in Tilcara

Our plan had been to stay at Tilcara and visit the pre-Incan pucará before heading into Bolivia the next day, however Joanne had seen something about more ruins a bit closer to the border at Humahuaca, and Enrique, the Argentinian manager of the hostel in Salta, had advised us that Humahuaca was nicer and cheaper to stay than Tilcara, and he was also able to recommend us a hostel there; so our new ambitious schedule was to stop off at Tilcara, see the ruins there, get on another bus to Humauaca, see the ruins there and stay the night.

By the time we arrived at Tilcara we were a couple of hours behind schedule, even though the bus was only supposed to take a couple of hours; the demonstration on the way and the fact that they were clearly lying about the time in the first place had made our original plan look very unlikely. We had a quick lunch and set off, deciding just to make it up as we went along; maybe the ruins in Tilcara wouldn't take too long.

Nice stripey mountains

Nobbly formations

The town was very dry, but surrounded by fantastic rock formations and hills with lots of different coloured layers. The town itself was quite cute, with lots of shops selling llama wool clothing and various other tourist tat, but we didn't have time to hang around, so set off on the road to the pucará. Once there we discovered that it was a national park, the ticket also covering a small zoo and some gardens. Apart from taking a couple of photos of llamas we just ignored these and headed straight to the ruins.

Dusty road, pucará in the background

Llamas! Rrrrrrr!

Stripey!

I suppose I should have read a bit more about the ruins in advance, but these were hardly Machu Picchu. Most of it had been completely reconstructed and the parts that hadn't were so ruined there wasn't really anything to see. It was interesting enough to imagine people living there even before the Incas, but it was really the landscape and the giant cacti that made the visit for me. On the way back along the road to town, we bumped into Ricarda, the German girl from the barbecue in Salta two nights previously. Funny how the same people keep popping up again and again.

Lots of cacti

Reconstructed dwellings

I'm sure Esther Rantzen would like this

Those cacti are pretty big

Could be the Wild West

Pretty

Grave

Not sacred enough to leave the remains apparently

Graves

Then it was on another bus and off to Humahuaca. It looked liked we might just have enough time to see the ruins, depending on where they were; otherwise we would get up early in the morning to see them before heading for Bolivia.

written by

The Happy Couple on October 16, 2009 from Tilcara, Argentina

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

Send a Compliment

comment on this...