Oct 12, 2009 Mon

See the condors face to face and rise above the clouds.

The trail started from the village across Iruya. You can see the trail (NOT to reach the trail) from the Cross at the top of Iruya (above Hosteria Iruya). It looks very steep and high from far away, but it isn't.

From the church of Iruya you can see the village across with the football field. Follow the main street of the football field village, it will go up and up until it exit the boundary of the village and rise up into the mountain. It is pretty high, around 500m to 600m elevation (more than 3200m high) I think...

The trail is well maintained, good enough for a donkey to pass (they have frequent donkey traffic). To see the condors, you need to start in the morning. I started at around 10:30am, reached 3050m at around noon. A giant shadow swooped down on me. I could have mistaken it with a dragon. And I saw three Andean condors hovered above me, almost close enough for me to touch.

Too bad I have a bus to catch... I was so close to the top (at around 3200m), in an afterthought, maybe I should have forgot the bus... There are always buses, but only once a life time to climb a mountain this beautiful. It even beat the trail to San Isidro (which I thought was quite excellent).

Yes, at the end I did catch my bus but missed the mountain...

Panamericano 2:00pm exit
Just on time to catch the bus
Perfect timing, the bus was crowded. Even the seats are assigned; you still have to arrive early to ensure it wasn?t taken by someone else. Of course you can ask them to leave, but if some senior Argentinean villagers sat on your seat, you would be too embarrassed to ask, right?

Bus from Iruya to Humahuaca only takes 3 hours.
Bus from Humahuaca to La QUIACA (there are lots):
JamaBus 9:00, 11:05, 15:15, 21:15, 4:25am
Balut: 2:20, 2:40, 4:15, 4:45, 10:10, 12:05, 15:10, 20:20
El Quiaquend: 9:25, 11:45, 14:45, 16:45, 20:45, 23:20 (rapid)