Purmamarca’s colorful mountains

The whole day was just an adventure through and through. From when I actually started the day, nearly up until right now.  I’ll bring you through the entire day because I’d like you to be able to be here with me and to visualize some of the things that I was seeing. 

I’m going to share the pictures, but there’s just so much that happened during the day that I felt like I was really a part of everything. It felt like such a great, authentic experience today, just being around the people, eating the indigenous foods of the land. It was such a magnificent experience for me that—I don’t think I’ll forget for a long time to come. 

And it all started this morning when I got up and had breakfast. To get to Puramarca from here, in San salvador de jujuy, you have to take a cab. You’re sharing the cab with another person or with a group of people because the way that the transportation is, it’s more economical. 

As a nomad, even if you might not be so comfortable with it, sometimes you have to jump out of your comfort zone. You’re in a cab with complete strangers that you don’t know going to this beautiful location that you’ve seen in these pictures that when I was in Buenos Aires, I heard so much about this place. And that’s why I actually came all the way through Salta and all those places, to see this mountain—to see this space. I was so taken aback by the pictures that I saw. 

I’m here to see the world. That’s the part of being a nomad that is so wonderful. There’s always the ability to watch pictures, to look at a video, to get pictures of a place, but it’s not the same as being in the place. It is surely not the same. You can’t experience the smells, the sounds, the people themselves, the way that they react to you, the way that you react to them, and having even the ability to interact with the people. 

You cannot do that through video. You have to be there in person to be able to see the people’s faces, see the wrinkles, see the struggle, see the happiness, see the amazement and seeing a stranger appreciate their culture in some of the ways that they do. It’s a wonderful experience to exchange that with another human being. 

And that’s the part of being a nomad, that I love. Those are the feelings that continue to drive me through these journeys and to go to these different places, to see these different things. The people themselves, being able to be there with them and experience everything that I’m experiencing that is brand new to me with them. 

I want you to imagine a vast landscape that slowly creeps up on you. First, the mountains are far away as you’re driving in. Then as you’re getting closer, you’re weaving, I think, into the mountains. Then you start to see slowly, but surely, you start to see mountains that are different colors. There’s green, one is red, there’s a little bit of purple, and it’s like a slow, you’re slowly introduced to these mounds that get bigger and bigger and bigger as you’re driving along

The town isn’t a very big, established place. It reminds you of a village type of place where everything is brick made. The streets are still dirt. It’s still really a dirt road in the village. There’s cobblestone paths somewhere through, but it’s really a dirt road. All of these places, you see the people with the bright colors. You see a lot of indigenous tribal type of clothing, type of the calabashes as we call them in Jamaica. I don’t know what the exact name is here.  You see those kinds of items, people eating out of them. You see them making salami out of llama. We’re going to talk about that in a moment. 

You’re in this desert town. It’s beautiful in a way because the buildings are all brightly colored.  A lot of them are very ranch style where they have tiles on the floors. As you look in, it’s beautiful, like orangish tiles or bright turquoise tiles on the floors. As you look into these establishments, as you walk around, Purmamarca is really beautiful. 

There is the beautiful backdrop where you see all of these beautiful mountainous regions that are these different colors. Earlier that you can see them coming on the drive, but when you get closer, you see the green more brilliant, more bright. You see the red there. You see everything so much more clear. Sometimes pictures cannot do justice that your eyes can do for sure because there’s this beautiful tree right in the middle. 

The town has lots of signs of just really beautiful, normal life of the Pueblo people, of the indigenous cultures that are there in the area. Because Purmamarca isn’t traditional Argentina, to be honest. The way that things operate there, even the way that the Spanish was spoken.

You don’t hear the same “playa” the way that they do in Buenos Aires. It’s a different type of Spanish, closer to Chileans. It really is interesting and quite exotic. 

The people are even closer to the Chileans in appearance. They’re shorter. They’re more indigenous looking. Not only that, but they have the warm olive toned skin. They’re short. They’re a stout bodied.  They’re carrying their baskets to sell things. It was beautiful being there and getting to experience that with them and seeing just how wonderful and diverse and how much joy there was in the everyday. 

You walk around the trail and Putumalmataka, when you get there, after you walk through the town, you can walk up and down the trail. There’s a larger trail. It was getting really hot, and I did not think that through. So I did not go all the way up the trail.  On the main trail, you could to see all the mountains and to see all the different colors. At the peak, you could look down and get some of those shots that the drones were showing that had kind of influenced me to come here. 

But all the same, I didn’t need to be up there to see that specific and that exact shot. I was actually so much more interested in seeing the town and the space itself and experiencing it as a whole and the cultural significance of being in a space like this, which is where the Pueblo people are. Earlier on my travels, I was hearing about them. 

I saw a lot of, I heard a lot about them, even from my friend that was on the airplane that told me about them and the art that was going on. It focused a little bit on the Pueblo people. It was more of a full circle moment to be able to see some of these things and be able to just be here with them and, again, experience it in real life. IRL is so much better. 

When I came back from the walk, went to the right, and it took the short way up.  I didn’t go all the way up to the peak of the mountain or anything like that, because the sun was not my friend. I came back down, and I was hungry by that time.

I was determined to be able to join in and to see what this traditional instrument was and what the hell was making this noise. So I wandered into this restaurant, and it’s a touristy place as well, it’s Purmamarca, but they have, you know, they give you the English menu, and they tell you this is what the tourists order. I’m going to have what the tourists order.

What do the tourists order? They order a stew that is made of Llama. I kid you not. Yes, it is.  It is Llama. Am I going to eat this Llama stew? Yes, of course I am going to eat this Llama stew. I didn’t come to South America and all the way to Purmamarca not to try these things, not to eat, not to experience the culture with them. 

Let me set the scene: you’re here in this restaurant, you’re sitting and all of a sudden you hear this sound. It’s this big gigantic horn, it has to be at least 6 to 10 feet long. This thing is long. It is this long horn that this gentleman has in the corner, and he’s playing it and there’s a little bit of a dancing going on. You’re getting a show as your food is about to come out. And it’s such a very interesting and beautiful representation of the culture of the Pueblo people here on the coast of Argentina and Chile. It’s a little bit of the mix of the Chilean culture, I think, and Argentinian culture. Because I don’t think that I’ve seen this anywhere else in Argentina. 

What an interesting experience to be able to sit here gazing out at these beautiful mountains that are just changing these colors from green to orange to purple and then just hearing the music and just seeing the faces of the kids and the people and the music. It’s amazing. I would definitely suggest coming here. 

The energy of the place warms you up, you don’t need their brightly color blankets. It warmed up. The day warmed up. 

I was so happy by the end of the day. I was so happy to be able to enjoy this experience with everybody. On the cab ride over here I got to experience talking with somebody from Mexico and speaking about how they saw Argentina, how the Spanish was different and how they had to adjust for like a month or two to certain words that it didn’t make sense to them, even though they are obviously speaking Spanish their entire life. 

So it’s cool to even see that kind of breaking in the culture. And like I said, I noticed the differences myself. And I was thinking of how in Buenos Aires, you don’t hear certain words in here. 

It sounds a different way. The Spanish sounds slightly different. 

The cab ride in the evening is beautiful because you’re getting to see the sunset. As we’re driving back and the sun is setting, you have this twilight, you’re also able to really catch a glimpse of a gorgeous visage. You see these amazing, beautiful colors at the sunset. 

The cab ride in the evening is beautiful because you’re getting to see the sunset. As we’re driving back and the sun is setting, you have this twilight, you’re also able to really catch a glimpse of a gorgeous visage. You see these amazing, beautiful colors at the sunset. 

I remember we drove around one corner and the corner that we drove around, the sun, the way the sun peeked over the mountains, it drew like a slight silhouette over just the edges of it.  So that you could just see the beautiful pop of color on each of the mountains. It was such a beautiful drive back. I would highly suggest this. 

Seeing things in pictures, even seeing things in videos, your eyes are the best recorders. Nothing will ever beat your eyes. And to be able to experience this was an amazing experience. 

Argentina, Argentina, that was wonderful. I had such a good time. I even bought a few souvenirs from there, a few pens, and a few things.  I did not buy the salame de llama. The llama stew was wonderful, but I did not buy any of the salame de llama because I think that maybe my stomach, even though I had the stew, it might not be ready for the salame. Because I do think those things are a different process. 

Today was a wonderful day, and I’m so happy to be able to share this story with you, and to be able to come on my journey, and just to be able to put this in my journal so that I can remember these times, remember these things later.

-Tall Black Nomad