Salta

Lou: One of the site-seeing options in the old colonial towns that we have visited is to visit huge, elaborate churches. In Salta alone, we went to 3 huge churches. This one wasn´t even on the tourist maps. It was very bright and intricately decorated another one was kind of dark with creepy statues. Also a view of it from our balcony at sunset at the hostel where we stayed.
This is the hill of seven colors. (above)
We took a day guided excursion (ie paid someone to drive us around on a tourist route) outside of Salta and saw some great mountain scenery and some llamas. We stopped at a salt flats and some pre-Incan ruins. It was similar to the route taken by "the train to the clouds". Turns out this very famous train is out of commision until next year. Seemed to us that we didn´t miss that much; being on a train the whole time and taking the same route back didn´t seem like it would have been that exciting after all.

It´s all salt! Where are the margaritas!
The salt comes to the surface (I think) and they scoop it out for commercial use.This is true rock salt. The layers in the "table" are just different minerals mixed in with the salt at that level. It was so bright I was crying.
There were people in ski masks to protect their skin from the sun exposure and they were carving and selling rock salt sculptures. Sorry, no rock salt souvenirs, they were super heavy! P.S. I don´t think the name Salta comes from the salt flat.The ruins at Santa Rosa de Tastil. I believe they are from about 1000-1500 AD. There was a ton of adobe shard laying all over. Our guide said that they had roofs made from layers of adobe and cane. It was amazing as we came over the hill and realized the enormity of the area. We were told that a similar ruin site south of Salta was even larger. Not alot in the way of interpretation of the site or even preservation, unfortunately. I did go to an amazing museum in Salta that was dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of mummies found at sites in the mountains of the area. The mummies were in freezers somewhere there, but there was a lot of footage about the discovery and about them. All of the items found at the site were on display. There were little dolls that consisted of folded over pieces of brilliantly colored cloth with a pin of metal or of shell holding it together and a little face of metal or shell also brightly colored feathers on top. All perfectly preserved from about 1500!