December 4, 2010

After some home schooling we walked a bit around the center of Salta and went to the Museum of High Altitude Archeology.

Unfortunately photography was not allowed in the museum.

This museum once again took us into the fascinating world of the Incas. In 1999 an archeological expedition visited an Inca shrine not far from Salta, a shrine constructed at over 6700 meters (22 000 feet) altitude on the highest peak in this part of the Andes, a volcano called Llullaillaco. The shrine at Llullaillaco is the highest documented presence of humans anywhere in the world before the nineteenth century. Impressively enough the Incas had built an Inca trail all the way up there.

Mountains were holy to the Incas and represented Pacha Mama (mother earth). Mountain tops were used to sacrifice to the gods and Inca shrines have been found on almost all peaks in this area.

The exepdition found something extraordinary. They found the entrance to an underground chamber, with 3 mummies of children and many ornaments and pieces of clothing. This very well done museum was built entirely to show and tell the story of the find.

At the entrance we were given binders with a complete translation to English of all the explaining text on the walls of the entire museum. Both in Argentina and Peru we have been impressed by the quality of English at museums and tourist attractions. It´s a far cry from the poor state of many French museums, I´m afraid.

The Inca empire was split into 4 different areas, or states, if you want. Once a year they had a ceremony in Cusco where selected children from each of the 4 areas were sent. These were often children of governors or chiefs. They were selected for their beauty and flawlessness and were given a special fattening diet months before the pilgrimage and ceremony. At the ceremony in Cusco the children met the emperor and were symbolicaly married in couples. This was done to strengthen ties between different peoples in the empire. When the ceremony was over the children were brought to their homes again. However, this time they were not allowed to use the Inca trails but had to go home in a straight line, often having to pass significant geographic obstacles on their way. Because of this the voyage could take several months.

Once the children arrived they were sent on their last voyage, the voyage to the gods. Essentially they were brought to an Inca shrine and then tied up and left to die as a sacrifice to the gods. The 3 children found on Llullaillaco were sacrificed in this way. They were given coca leaves on the extremely strenuous journey to the top, to help breathing and keep them alive. Once arrived they were given an intoxicating drink to minimize pain.

There we have that religion thing again. The Incas thought these horrific actions would strengthen the Inca emperor and help avoid plagues like famine.

The bodies of these children who died 500-600 years ago are exceptionally well preserved because of the special conditions at the peak. In addition to being one of driest places in the world, the temperature is permanently below the freezing point. CT scans have revealed that their internal organs are intact and in good condition. These are some of the best preserved mummies ever found.

Even though photogtaphy was not allowed I photographed two of the mummies from the museum brochure. These photos should fall well within the “fair use” provision in copyright law, so I can share them with you. This is a 15 year old girl:

and this is a 6 year old girl:

Only one of the mummies is on display at any one time. When we were there it was the 6 year old girl. It was pretty creepy to see such a well preserved almost 600 year old corpse of a girl the same age as Iseline. Iseline herself did not want to watch for very long.

We can only guess what their last moments must have been like. What was it like to walk all the way to a high mountain peak with extremely thin air? Did they know what was going to happen with them? What part did their parents play, and when did they see them last? All sorts of questions went through my mind as I looked into the face of this very young girl.

The museum also had the different artifacts found in the graves on display. Finely woven pieces of cloth, lama figures made from both silver and gold and many other things.

There was also a great map of the Inca trail road system, reminding us once again of the amazing achievements of the Inca culture.

A striking difference between Argentina and Peru is how people relate to and talk about the Inca period. In Peru everyone is a mestis, a mix between natives and Europeans. Everyone seems to identifiy with the Inca past, and everyone seems to be proud to be of native heritage, even those who have fairly light skin.

In Argentina it is us and them. The European descendants run the country and the Incas were the ancestors of the current native population. The museum texts reflected this and made references to “the natives” all the time.

After the museum we visited an indoor market

At 4pm we met Mario, Vero and Victoria outside the main cathedral

Our goal was to walk up to the top of Cerro San Bernardo a hill top at 1454 mteres (4770 feet) altitude with a magnificent view of Salta. The city is at 1187 meters (3895 feet) altitude, so we had some climbing to do.

When Iseline saw where we were going

she staged a strike.

Understandnng that she did not have a choice she soon joined us. There were stairs all the way up

We had a nice walk up the hill. The forest around us was without leaves because of a forest fire. There is also a cable car going to the top, but walking up gave us a very different experience and many great views of the city. Besides, it was cheaper and healthier than the cable car. Highly recommended.

As you can see Iseline is missing from these pictures. After having argued at the bottom that she was much too small for such a walk she set off like a Duracell bunny once we reached the stairs. There were 12 small chapel-like mini houses on the way up with paintings of Jesus on them. Iseline would wait for us at them, then complain that we were much too slow, before she raced to the next one as soon as we arrived. Adrian counted every single step and at the top he arrived at exactly 1170 steps. We still don´t know if he made an off-by-one mistake on counting the hundreds, or if the sign at the bottom was wrong, since he refused to recount as quality control. 🙂

At the top there was an artificial water fall.

and some great views of Salta

We rested our feet and had a well deserved drink at a cafeteria at the top:

Here we learned that in Argentina strawberry is not called “fresa,” as in Spain, it is called “frutilla.”

After some discussion we decided to chicken out and tok the cable car down again:

We took a bus over to Jose and MIrta´s place. It was already getting well past 8pm.

MIrta had invited us over for a real Argentine barbecue. When we arrived she was out shopping and after a while she phoned in, reporting that her car refused to start! In the end she managed to contact a friend who was a mechanic. He helped her tow the car back home and everyone helped to push it into the garage.

The mechanic and his family were invited to join our barbecue. They had 2 girls, 6 and 10 years old. In the beginning Iseline and the girls were very shy of each other. Then the two sisters started playing memory, a universal game Iseline knows very well. After some light pushing from me and Hélène she dared to go over to the girls and observed the game for a while. Then she was invited to join. It is such a joy to see children with no common language communicate and get to know each other. The three girls were playing and having fun within minutes and stuck together for the rest of the evening.

They moved so much it was difficult to take pictures of them. It was great to see Iseline playing again with girls roughly her own age:

Adrian and Mario found a common interest in computer games and Adrian showed him his iPod games

Viktor continued with his monster making

In good Argentine tradition we kept eating and talking until one in the morning. The atmosphere had been great and we were all tired and happy on our way back to the hotel. My ambition of catching up on my blogging would have to be postponed even further.

Eirik

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