Wine + Mummy Museum = Nightmares

SALTA, Argentina -- We have found ourselves stranded, once more, in a city a day beyond our planned departure. This time, we made a calculated decision to stay and wait rather than abandon our clothes at the laundromat. We dropped them off yesterday morning, and when we returned at 9:15 p.m. to pick them up, we found the laundromat had closed, with our clothing locked inside. They had told us they would stay open until 10 p.m. I think that was a lie.
We would have arrived earlier, but we needed to finish our wine at the Patio de la Empanada, sort of like a food court with only one kind of food (thanks to Andrew for the recommendation). And we needed the wine to wipe away the memory of the most disturbing museum exhibit we have ever seen.
The new-ish museum, MAAM (Museum of the High Mountains, www.maam.org.ar), topped my list of things to do in Salta. It exhibits mummies found at the summit of a 6,700-meter volcano, preserved in perhaps the most perfect conditions possible. In retrospect, we should have realized seeing the remains of 6-year-old children sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago would be somewhat disturbing. The museum explained its reasons for the exhibit over and over (a rare glimpse at the roots of an ancient culture still alive today), and it was done in a professional, educational manner, and we would have gone if we had to do it all over again. But still, we needed the wine. And it went nicely with the mini-empanadas -- we had a pile of 14 cheese, beef and chicken varieties, plus the wine, water and Fanta, for a grand total of $15.
But we were still a little creeped out. It only made matters worse that earlier, the night manager at the hotel (we are constantly befriending talkative night managers) told us about duendes. We had heard of these leprechaun-like creatures, and his tale confirmed that everyone in Salta, center of the duende universe, believed fervently in them. We saw duende-themed stores and bars on the way back to the hotel, selling garden gnomes that looked just like the one our Dutch friends on the Uyuni tour stole from their parents´ garden, then sent snapshots back in the mail (he´s traveling independently, they told us). Duendes abounded. The night manager pointed out the YouTube video recently shot near Salta by a group of teenagers (search for Duende de Guemes) and explained that the duendes don´t hurt anyone ... they just move things around and pilfer objects. You keep them at bay by leaving out cigarettes and whiskey (a tradition that extends to the dead ... we saw cigarettes and whiskey, plus coca leaves, all over the cemetery in Sucre ... and to shrines to Pachamama, the Earth Mother, and to El Tío, the underworld god in the Potosí mines.).
We had no time for buying cigarettes and whiskey. So when something woke me up around 4 in the morning (a bad dream, a noise, empanada hallucinations ... I don´t know) I jumped right into full-fledged paranoid delusion.
We´re staying in an extremely old, extremely dark youth hostel, and I was paralyzed by fear. I thought duendes were surrounding the bed, and I assumed they had come up through the bathroom drain (rats do that in South Florida, and I noticed the drain grate was loose earlier. I had forgotten to put something heavy over it). I became convinced the duendes wanted to steal the tissue packets I had just purchased and left on the nightstand. As I have a terrible cold, I wanted to hide the tissues so the duendes could not take them. But I was afraid that if I moved I would surprise the duendes and anger them. I did not want to turn on the light to see an army of pointy-hatted little Travelocity gnomes, and I was afraid that in their anger they might call on the mummies at the museum. Having just seen the mummies literally in the flesh, the prospect of their encore appearance terrified me. I was too tired to deal with it. So I told the duendes to please go away, and promised to bring them cigarettes and whiskey tomorrow. Let´s hope that buys us some rest tonight so we can make the 7 am bus to the wineries tomorrow.