Roaming South America

San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina

July 10, 2023

San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina.

In wrapping up my visit to Paraguay, and working my way north through the towns of Yby Yaú and Concepción, I visited Filadelfia, a mostly Mennonite town. Taking the bus from Filadelfia should have been no more than 5 - 5 1/2 hours, so I figured. Boy, was I wrong.

The bus didn't take the highway. Instead, it first went out of its way, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to get to a community called Neuland Colony, then continued a short distance and left the pavement. The bus continued to visit community after community for 11 more hours. On sandy and rough dirt roads. In all, about 11 1/2 hours in a bus that is meant for inner-city driving. It wasn't a pleasant ride. I finally arrived at the tiny, very tiny, town of Pozo Hondo at the border with Argentina, across from another very small town called Mision La Paz. Neither of which have a hotel, nor an hostal, nor any other place to spend a night. At the border I chatted with the guards and the immigrations woman and she invited me to hang out with her and her co-workers in their shared work-home. They were great, they gave me dinner, let me take a shower, and even lay down for a couple of hours. I had a four-hour break until the next bus arrived, at 2am. The bus to Tartagal arrived and it was another 5 1/2 hours with the first hour plus on more dirt roads. Finally in Tartagal I changed to a bus to go to Salta, the only real city in northern Argentina. That was about 5 more hours but all on paved roads, finally.

In Salta, I stayed one night then caught a bus to Purmamarca, a very small historical town in the mountains. My reasoning being that from that town I could get the bus on Monday morning at 9am. Well, as it turns out, and nobody told me about this, there are roadblocks and protests happening up there in that region. The bus stopped about 4 kilometers from the town and I walked the rest of the way. There are many, many hostals and some hotels in Purmamarca, it being a tourist town. The next day went to the cash machine, they are two in the one little location, and tried both machines—both were out of cash. I went to the one money-transfer business, it too was out of cash. I asked at various other stores and restaurants about getting extra cash after paying for something with my debit card, but none would do it. The town was very short of cash due to the roadblocks, and they didn't expect any more for probably two days. That wasn't a good situation for me as I travel with a minimum amount of cash on hand, so the next morning I left early and headed back down the mountains to San Salvador de Jujuy.

I was dropped off in downtown Jujuy and walked to the bus terminal, about 5 kilometers south, about an hour of walking. At the bus station I found a bus that goes to Chile, but only on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, and at that moment it was Monday afternoon. Th3e bus leaves at 2:30 am on those days. So, I left the bus station and went looking for a hotel somewhere in the vicinity and finally found one about a 15 minute walk away. It's a nice hotel, but there is nothing around here except vehicle dealerships and one gas station/restaurant. Anything and everything else is a half-hour walk away. Now I wait for the very early Wednesday morning bus to go to Calama, Chile. After that, to the coast and north to Perú.

My goal is to find a new place to live. So to reach that goal, I am traveling most of South America, visiting the countries of Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, and Chile, passing through Argentina, visiting Paraguay, passing through a bit of Brazil, and finally visiting Uruguay. I have a list of towns, about 70 that meet these qualifications: Cities with average day temperatures of 22-28° C (72-83° F) and night temps of 14° C (57° F) and higher; and a population between 28,000-300,000. I analyzed climate and population data of around 700 towns in the countries mentioned above and then pulled out the ones that meet the previously mentioned criteria, which leaves about 70. My preference leans towards towns of less than 100,000 people.  And, now that I have visited more than 30 towns/cities, I've decided I will probably want an inland town. I love the beach and walking in the warm water, but getting sunburned is just too easy, even on a cloudy day. At least here in Ecuador. I've also decided that any town with more than 100,000 population will be too big. I've decided that any small town/city (less than around 80,000 population) that meets the temp specifications and has a supermarket and ATM is one worth considering to live in.

My goal is to visit the towns and discover which one calls out to me - "Chip, Chip, make your new home here, this is your new home town". That hasn't happened yet, but the towns listed below are very close to giving me that feeling. At any rate, I am not visiting tourist attractions or archeological sites, etc, those will have to wait for another trip through South America.

At this point in my journey, I had ten towns on my Top 10 list, but I narrowed it down to four:

• Tingo Maria, Perú
• Moyobamba, Perú
• Catamayo, Ecuador
• Puyo, Ecuador

During my travels in Ecuador I visited 32 towns/cities. In Perú, I visited 26 towns/cities; in Chile, only five towns; and in Argentina, I visited 15 towns. In Uruguay, I visited five towns, and in Brazil, three. So far, I have visited 26 cities in Paraguay.

Next up: Calama, Chile.