Iruya

We spent three days in the remote mountain hamlet of Iruya. It’s a fully-functioning town, but four hours away from civilization and reachable only by a vertiginous dirt road. The building at the top of the hill on the right, behind the dome, was our hotel, the Hostería Iruya.

Below are some photos and a video of the crazy road leading to Iruya. The buses would fly down this road at ridiculous speeds. We sort of crept along, but made it there without invoking the “vehicle rollover” clause of our automobile insurance:

This village, like others we’ve stayed at in this region, is made up of mostly indigenous Andeans. The mother and child below are sporting llama-wool ponchos. Speaking of women and children, a local ritual here involves men coming in from surrounding villages once a year to have sex with the women, some of whom can entertain up to five men in a single night. The children born of such pairings are revered by the village. It’s apparently a way to increase the genetic diversity of isolated villages like this one, which are at risk of inbreeding. Note: if you intend to entertain five men in one night, red hot-pants make perfect sense but you probably shouldn’t wear a white poncho.

(If you ever go to Iruya, beware the dog on the left – he attacked our car and left claw marks in the paint.)

Here’s the view from the bedroom window of our hotel. This cemetery was a bit bigger than the others we’ve seen, probably because of the road into town. Good Morning Corpses!

On the third day, we took the Volkswagen on an ill-advised trip up the rocky river canyon to San Isidro. We got stuck halfway up, and walked the remaining distance. Here’s us at the village entrance:

Public transit in San Isidro:

-J