San Salvador de Jujuy

San Salvador de Jujuy is a large city in the very north of Argentina. If you use Google Maps, I have posted a few photos up there, and hope to put up a little video soon which shows the interesting architecture and town planning (or lack there of).

Excuse me if this isn't 100% correct but a couple of hundred years ago Jujuy would've been part of Bolivia (before the Argentines got a little greedy and invaded them in cahoots with Chile), so it has one of the largest populations of indigenous peoples. The people are a mixture of tribes the most commont hat I came accross was guarani and kechua. However, Spanish is spoken by virtually everybody. Being a city with many centuries of history the streets are relatively small and the older buildings have been modernised so that a walk in the central areas seems like you are half in the west and half in the east. It{s difficult to describe, so I will hurry up and put a video on Picassa for anybody to see shortly.

It is the weekend before Carnaval. Carnaval for some is a grand excuse to get drunk and party hard, for youth to let loose and get away with being picaron (cheeky) for a week by having water baloon fights in the streets, and for others it is a time to rekindle ancestral beliefs and traditions and come together as a family. Although Christianity is strong in Jujuy the deities and spirituality pre-colonialism are still alive and strong. Although I will hopefully have more to say about this the week following carnaval. As we will be in Tilcara for the entire week, and I doubt that I will be spending much time in the Locutorio (cyber).