Tues Jan 27: Drive from Tilcara to Yavi and back to Tilcara. Opportunity to visit La Quiaca (Bolivia) en route.
The region in which the village of Yavi is located in the northeastern part of the Jujuy Province and corresponds to the Puna highland plateau and thus the climate is dry and cold. The landscape is like a plain with many mountain chains and rivers of no big importance. There is little flora and fauna, although you will find species like cacti, queñoa and churqui, and animals such as foxes, guanacos, vicuñas and vizcachas .In the area there are still many mineral deposits that are yet not exploited.
Yavi is 16 kilometres east of La Quiaca, on a paved road, and is one of the villages which is a perfect example of a village under Spanish Royal Grant rule, a so called "Encomienda", and the birthplace of many generations of farmer-soldiers who, from here, dominated and administered vast territories located on both sides of what today is the Argentinean Bolivian border. The historic village of Yavi is today but a shade of its former importance with only 339 inhabitants remaining that live in adobe wall houses with typical roofs made out of reed, clay and straw, adequate shelter for the cold Puna highland nights. It is located beside the Río San Francisco, in a small valley in the midst of the vast, windy and dry highland plateau. However, Yavi is like an oasis in the region. It was founded in 1667, when the Spanish Crown gave to the first Marquis of Tojo the lands belonging to this shire.
Its church, of simple and harmonious architectural lines was built in 1690 by the family of the Marquis of Campero and the Marquise of Ovando, who represented one of the richest and most important feudal possessions on the South American continent. Special mention should be made of its artistic altarpieces covered in plate gold, the statues and paintings of the famed Escuela Cuzqueña Cuzco School, as well as the admirable statues of Our Lady of the Rosary - Nuestra Señora del Rosario and of San Francisco. This church, together with the mansion of the Marquis of Tojo, of ample walls and big courtyards made this place into a National Historical Monument.
The church has only had small alterations over the year. so is basically original. Its architectural lines are of a great simplicity and beauty. The pulpit, the altars and the altarpieces are covered by gold plate. It contains paintings and notable wood sculptures of, amongst others, San Francisco, John the Baptist - San Juan Bautista, San José, Santa Ana and San Joaquín, which were brought from Cuzco. According to an old description "it has eleven windows, ten of which measure more than a metre and a half tall and 85 centimetres wide, which, instead of glass panes, use white onyx pieces more than four fingers thick, transparent like crystal, brought at great cost from more than leagues away, and which give a great clarity inside the whole church."
In 1708, the son in law and successor of Pablo Bernárdez de Ovando, the local landowner, is titled Marquis of the valley of Tojo by the Spanish Crown, a hereditary title of nobility, " in consideration for his services and great quality of nobleness and blood". Thus a line of marquis come into being which gave their name to the family seat, which, conserved and converted into a museum today can be visited by the traveller. The last of the line joined the forces of Independence and was captured by the royalists and sent to Jamaica where he eventually passed away. The mansion of the hacienda, in colonial style, with thick adobe walls and brick and mud roofs, has an interior courtyard with stone floor, around which the 12 rooms are distributed in a ring. Today, a library, a museum and an exhibit of local wares for sale occupy them.
The road from Tilcara was good and there was little traffic. The views were nice; antiplano scrub with some nice colours in the surrounding mountains. Tootling along in the middle of nowhere, we approached the town of Abra Pampa to find that the road was closed. When we eventually found out what it was all about, it transpired that they were protesting about investment in their hospital not being enough. They physically blocked the main road and had an agreement with the police that they would stand aside for a few minutes every hour. We found them still doing it when we returned some hours later. Luck was with us as we only had to wait a few minutes each time, but certainly there were massive numbers of cars in the queue.
We arrived in La Quiaca having driven about 200 km. La Quiaca is a poor uninteresting town that you really do not want to stop in. Beyond La Quiaca it was 10 km to Yavi along a good road with nice scenery, shown below.
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Yavi has the end of the world feel to it, with its dirt streets and adobe house. Again the town has been discovered by the backpackers, and all the services are geared at that market. It really is a quirk of history that it a Marquis lived here and ran his empire from here.
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The statutory statue |
The place we had lunch |
We had lunch in a local hostelry for backpackers, waiting a full hour for the arrival of the food. Back to Tilcara.
And the next day we drove past Purmamarca again and took the road over the escarpment to the Salinas Grandes and on to Susques