Purmamarca, Argentina

18th September – 19th September 2017

After a really good night’s sleep, I woke up at 6.10 in a bit of a panic wondering where I was. I then remembered and realised I hadn’t set an alarm, so I did for 7, rolled over and went back to sleep. When the alarm when off, I felt so tired, but got up and had to go across the courtyard to the bathrooms – I really wasn’t a fan of that. I got back and Sabrina was awake, so we got up and ready. We had to have our bags ready at back locker for 7.30 and be ready to leave for 7.45.

We were all ready and left the hostel just before 7.45 to head towards the border into Argentina and over to Purmamarca. We had to go back up in altitude to get to the border and we could feel it in temperature as well as breathing.

Our first toilet break of the day was about 10am and we had 55km to go to the border at this point. It was only a short break, which is the benefit of having such a small group, so we were off and on again in about 5 minutes ready to carry on again.

We arrived at the border at about 10.50ish and Amber was already there. We had to take our passports and go in to get our exit Chile stamp and entry to Argentina stamp; when I left Chile the guard looked at me and told me how young I am on my passport photo and then the Argentina guard questioned my whole name as though it wasn’t me – very strange. After we had our stamps, we then had to go and get our bags off the truck (both day bags and backpacks) and take them into the building to get them scanned. When I went through the security barriers I beeped but the guard just looked at me and laughed, so I don’t know what the point of that was. Although Sara said she has been stuck there for hours and hours in the past, we were done within an hour and were back on Yana with all her paperwork complete.

We drove out of the border crossing section and stopped at the nearest gas station for a fuel fill up and snack break – the service stations in Argentina are much more westernised than anything we have seen so far, so that was a treat.

We left the service station around 12.15 and carried on our journey to Purmamarca. For lunch we had the largest empanadas I have ever seen, that Sara and Lars had bought for us, so we ate them en route, as we still had 280km to go.

We didn’t have many stops along the way – it is a lot easier travelling with less people because we don’t have to stop as much. We pulled in at an Argentinean version of some salt flats but the man wouldn’t let us park up, so we didn’t stay there very long.

Our final stop of the drive was at a viewpoint as we were entering the mountain range.

At this point we had the opportunity to go up on the roof seats if we wanted, and as there are enough roof seats for one each, I didn’t hesitate. I went up on the back row with Katie and Jack and Sabrina and William went on the front row; Lars then joined us at the back later on. The views were amazing and it was definitely the best roof seat journey I have been on so far – the hot weather definitely helped that. While we were up there, it was like we were royalty: we kept getting beeped and waved at by other cars and people passing by – it was a cool experience.

We stayed on the roof seat right into Purmamarca (arriving in style) but it definitely got a bit chillier as we got closer to the town; every corner would bring a new gust of wind that would blow us away. When we arrived at a campsite, Lars jumped out first to try and book us in for the night – we literally turned up with nowhere to stay and I don’t know why. Luckily we arrived just before the other group, but there was room for us all, so that worked out well.

We unloaded the truck and picked the best spots for our tents before putting them up. I had to share a tent with Sabrina, even though there were loads of spares in the truck and I didn’t have to share on Amber when there was a spare! After we pitched our tents, we got set up inside before walking into town as a group.

We weren’t very far from the centre, but the centre didn’t really have much to offer. Some people tried to exchange money and some people tried to get some out, but neither service was working very well so that wasn’t very helpful. The plan was to go out for dinner, for Joe’s birthday but it was too early, so we sat in a café/ bar thing and had a drink first. I didn’t get anything to drink because I didn’t particularly want anything and I didn’t have any money anyway. Me, Katie and Sabrina went for a wander to try and find a birthday cake; we thought Sara and Lars would have organised something but they didn’t. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a cake so went back to meet the rest of the group.

On the way to dinner, my group had to buy supplies for breakfast but Sara said there was cereal on the truck already, so I just provided the milk and the yogurt. We ended up in a local restaurant for dinner. It was so quiet when we went in, but apparently Argentineans don’t come out to eat until around 10, so we were just really early. I only had a soup for dinner because it look me that long to eat my giant empanada for lunch (which I never actually finished), so I wasn’t overly hungry.

After dinner, we walked back to the campsite and got ready for bed, ready for an earlyish start.

It was that cold during the night that I barely slept at all; I kept checking my watch, willing 6.40 to come around so that I could get up! When my alarm did go off, I got up and dressed, ready to go with Lars on a walk to see the sunrise. Although Lars promised the sunrise, it didn’t quite happen because we got up that late, it was already light when I opened my tent – he was convinced we hadn’t missed it though, so we went anyway.

There were only a couple of us that went to see the ‘sunrise’ (me, Sabrina, Katie, Aaron and Lars). We set off from the hotel in the same direction we left for dinner but we didn’t get as far as the town before we turned off. We walked up a rocky mountainside; it was quite steep in parts but easier than other mountains I’ve climbed, plus we were lower in altitude.

When we got to the top, we sat there for a while but we never actually saw the sun rise because we were looking in the wrong direction, plus we were too late anyway. It was pretty to see the mountains of 7 colours though as the light came over them. We sat there for a while, before walking back down and going back to the campsite.

When we got back to the campsite, it was my group’s turn to sort out breakfast, so I went straight to the truck to get started. It was a nice surprise when I got on because Sara had already set it all up for us and breakfast was all laid out nicely – I was very pleased with this!

We sat at the tables in the truck (because we can all fit and it saved us getting all the equipment out) and ate our breakfast. We were having cereals with milk or yogurt because it was nice and simple.

After breakfast, we had to clean up and pack up, ready to leave for Salta. Lars did another tent demonstration on taking the tents down and although we were last to back locker, me and Sabrina got our tent down the quickest!

I’m glad I went on the walk to see the mountains of 7 colours because otherwise Purmamarca would have had no relevance to me at all. I loved arriving into the town on the roof seats but I’m not a fan of camping in the cold, so I hope the weather is going to improve in the evenings!

To travel is to live, Katie x