Casabindo

Casabindo in Jujuy Province holds the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Asunción every 15th of August — the only toreo de la vincha in Argentina, a ceremony where a bull enters the village plaza not to be fought or killed but to have a ribbon with coins pulled from between its horns by young men who try to dodge it on foot. The church facing the plaza, built in 1772 and one of the finest colonial baroque churches in the northwest, holds more gold-leaf than most Argentine museums; the village surrounding it has 200 residents and no services beyond a single irregular bus.

Casabindo is a village in the Puna de Jujuy at 3,400 metres, historically the centre of a colonial administrative district that once extended across the high plateau. The Iglesia de la Asunción de Casabindo, built 1772-1796, contains an exceptional collection of Cuzqueño school paintings — a colonial-era Andean artistic tradition that merged European religious iconography with indigenous Andean motifs — and one of the most elaborate gilded altarpieces in the Argentine north. The annual Fiesta de la Virgen de la Asunción on 15 August combines the Catholic feast day with the toreo de la vincha, a pre-colonial ceremony that may predate Spanish arrival and has been absorbed into the Catholic calendar rather than replaced by it. The surrounding puna landscape — flamingo lagoons, salt flats, and vicuña herds — is accessible by dirt road from Abra Pampa (the nearest town, 40 kilometres north).