Casa Colorada

High mountain hotel

Once you get to Tilcara, you have to get ready to embark on a most challenging road: an eleven-kilometer journey that takes about 45 minutes -through a wonderful cornice path- from which the town and the entire Quebrada de Humahuaca can be overlooked. At times the road narrows too much, especially when approaching the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), in the Huasamayo riverbed... but so impressive is the army of haughty cactus trees withstanding the most aggressive winds that the awe is attenuated. There are thousands of them, tall, slender and proud. 

By the time the mood seems to be getting impatient with the risk, Casa Colorada can be noticed in the distance. The old post of the farm, property of the Álvarez Prado family - descendant of the leader of the independence war - rises in front of the modern stone construction, work of the architect Catucho Antoraz, in the most desolate and distinguished environment.

As soon as you arrive, Diego offers a warm welcome. A visit to the facilities is an appointment with the contemporary, an amalgam of rustic materials with a finished ambience in which the objects and furniture of "Usos" stand out. Both the "ekekos" and the furniture merge with the stones, the cactus wood, the little alabaster windows, the quebracho wood suspenders, the old pieces of mills, mortars and vessels from the nearby ancestral villages.

@casacoloradaoficial offers the visitor a place to rest; a pause to listen to the silence and to lose the sight in the reddish tones of the summits or the dry green of the hillside. The sunset from the terrace of the room is an unforgettable memory.

At night, dinner offers a gourmet Andean cuisine proposal that harmonizes with the high altitude wines in the cellar, particularly those from the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Be it the classic corn "humita" with a unique side dish of rehydrated tomato paste, or a pumpkin, sweet potato and apple soup with a mix of chopped seeds for starters, or the tenderloin with tasty local potatoes and "chimichurri "with "muña muña", or the pork meat in a reduction of sugar cane honey, mustard and port with rustic mashed potatoes as main course. The flambéed "kulli" (purple corn flour) pancake with "dulce de leche" is as tempting as the luxurious pear with cinnamon cream. To top it off, beating the cold with the help of a scotch, there is no better program than going to the terrace to enjoy the starry night.

Breakfast served by Sandra is complete: sweets, homemade breads and puddings and, why not, freshly scrambled eggs with lots of pepper.

The immensity of the mountain forces a walk, slow because the 3,200 meters above sea level are very well noted. Don Modesto, the stall keeper and local guide, chats to the visitors and then guides them on the tour behind the red house, amplifying with his stories the richness of the landscape.

The serenity of the immensity calms the soul, an invitation to an indulgent pause out of the daily madness.