On Saturday we went to Salinas Grandes, which is salt flat, located in the provinces of Salta and Jujuy.  It is around 240 km² and was a lake thousands of years ago that has since dried up and is now about a ½ km thick chunk of salt.  There were also pools of water in the salt that are occasionally excavated to help separate the minerals from the salt.

  It was a very beautiful sight to see and was one of the most beautiful places in Argentina that we have visited.  The light colors of the salt contrasts to the blue of the sky / water and the dark mountains in the background.

  We stayed there for about half an hour and took lots of pictures and then had some time to buy crafts.  There were venders selling sweaters that were made of llama fur, llamas and other figures made out of chunks of salt, llama keychains and all other things llama.

To get there we had to go through a lot of little villages which each had their own vendors selling everything llama.  We even had the opportunity to take pictures with two llamas.  We also went through many beautiful landscapes.  We stopped at a lot of different villages and other spots to take pictures and to soak in the beauty.  One of the other beautiful things was the many mountains that had different colors such as red, pink, blue/green, brown, grey, yellow and other mixes of colors that are made from oxygen reacting to different minerals.

Picture one

Picture two

There is a house in San Telmo in which a family and their slaves lived in the early 19^th century.  It was built in the 1830s over a house that was originally built in the 1700s.  There are some original structures to the building from the 18^th century as well as restorations done by the current owner, George.  George originally wanted to tear down the building and create a restaurant in the space, but once he discovered the historical site he decided to create a museum and open it to the public.  He had restorations done and completed an archeological dig.  During the dig, many artifacts were recovered such as ceramics, glass bottles, the framework of a toothbrush (since the bristles had not made it), silverware, and nails.

The house was built over a river and contains tunnels through which the rivers flow (picture  one).  You can still hear the water running through the tunnels and see some of the water under the wells.  The house contains two wells, one big one in the basement and one smaller one where the kitchen would be (picture two).  The water can be a big problem because it can flood the current building in the basement when there is heavy rain.

Fun facts:  People in the 1800s would use frogs as a water filter but this particular family used turtles as theirs!! Also, the walls are pasted together with a “glue” that is made of horse manure, but since it does not smell once it dries it was commonly used to hold bricks together.