Arriving in Iruya

I eat my breakfast at La Posada this morning. Fabian sits down with me to pan, marmalade and dulce de leche and asks if he could travel to Iruya with me. He tells me about another town, Purmamarca, and the beautiful salt flats, Gran Salinas, and I’m sold. I add it to my itinerary. A rope is handed down from the top of the bus to Iruya and the bags are pulled to the roof and secured. We get into the bus filled mostly by Quechan elders. The bus climbs a narrow cliffside road that no bus should rightfully be attempting, and the tourists in the bus gasp.

We top the 14k Condor Pass and start weaving around the hairpin switchbacks without a clear sense of where the edge is. We cross the line where a bus ride becomes an adventure. Fabian asks for a translation to the English expression when shit runs down your leg out of fear. "Shit your pants."

Iruya is smaller and sleepier than Humahuaca. It is nestled in a canyon and tilted at a steep angle sloping down to another canyon with a wide river bed with narrow channels. The majority of the bed is filled with rock and silt awaiting to be picked up by the next flood. Touts accost us right off the bus and lead us to their hospedajes going for a $2 a night. The first one we walk into is hospedaje Lili. There are simple accommodations here, plain beds and a tin roof and an outside bathroom with no toilet seat. It overlooks the church belfry and the red and green mountains and this is where we stay.

Fabian finds the tourist office. I go to sit down, but instead of disturbing the dead, stuffed cat from the seats, I stand. The agent sells us a small, one page map for 10 centavos and circles the attractions of the town: the mirardor atop of town, Villa Campo, the neighboring peublo and prime spot to take photos of Iruya, and an even more isolated village 10 km upriver and a thousand feet higher, San Isidor.

We hike to the mirador and then walk down again, and cross the river into Villa Campo and up the steep cobble past the adobe houses. Burros and dogs have the run of the streets. We make it to the top of town and are stopped there by private property signs and the sight of Quechan men leading burros down the mountainside switchbacks. The burros carry a few pieces of dilapidated wood on their back for some undetermined purpose. We hear a loudspeaker from Iruya calling for men to do work.

We return to Iruya and rest before dinner. I see a group of schoolboys doing a bobbing and weaving traditional dance in the middle of the street while their instructor whistles the music. At dinner, the waiter writes down the menu on a napkin and hands it to us. I eat two grilled flank steaks and potatoes and Fabian orders a Quinoa (a traditional grain) Tortilla. With our drinks we pay 13 pesos, all told, $2 each. I shake my head to Fabian, "imposible!"