Contact Admin. Click on the pictures to enlarge them. In the text there will be links to specific pictures or related sites. In the beginning there was chaos. We did not know this was an indication of how things would evolve afterwards, how to be forewarned? In January we knew we wanted to see the Carnaval at Humahuaca, we knew it was meant to begin one Saturday, the first of March. We knew it would be difficult to get a place to sleep, so we reserved it in advance, a cosy place at the Quebrada itself.
We could not get a plane to Jujuy, the nearest airport city to Humahuaca, so we left very early in the morning to Salta, about three hours from our destination town. Though we had in mind to visit this city, we preferred to go straight to Humahuaca, in order to prevent any delay and see all the traditions of the carnaval. In our minds we just had to go to the terminal station at Salta and take one of the several buses to do the trip.
We decided to hire a cab to Jujuy, to get a bit closer. We imagined that in Jujuy the transport lines would be more organized for the event, and it would be easier to get to Humahuaca. An hour later at Jujuy we met some kind of exodus: blocks and blocks of people waiting for buses, cars, everything with more than one wheel was okay.
We knew at that moment that we were screwed, that to reach Humahuaca would be something impossible that day. Even worse, the traffic police was ensuring that no unauthorized car could carry tourists outside the city. We gathered a dozen of young people from Buenos Aires in the same situation, and we managed to get a small bus for all of us.
In the union lives the power, we say here. But not all of us had Humahuaca as destination⦠the carnaval is celebrated in many towns. We would be left in a town near Humahuaca, but that was acceptable in that moment, anything to get out of Jujuy and get a little bit closer. Half way through the happy bus stopped, because in the middle of the mounts the carnaval was being born.
