ARGENTINA and recollections 8 years on

SALTA

Another long drive across the Border through semi arid high country with ocasional greener and more cultivated areas and spectacular rock formations of the Quebrada De Humahuaca. This was a dry, river scoured canyon overlooked by mountains of sedimentary strata which have been eroded into fantastic scalloped forms that looked like waves coming onto a shore.  I recall these colours of creamy white, pinks to deep reds of this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The tour leader kindly arranged an impromptu stop for 5 mins at a petrol station at Tilcara where my mum was 50 years ago! Photos were sent back to the UK and I recall thinking of footsteps of family history as I wondered where my mum had walked in the town all those years ago.

I liked Salta as a great colonial city which the Spanish developed as it lies in a mountain bowl with a perpetual spring. I recall lovely weather to while away time in shady plazas with a coffee or cold beer. One day was very hot and there had been a drought for 3 months and the land needed rain. We saw a few animal carcases by the roadsides providing food for vultures and condors.  Salta had good museums, plaza side cafes and pleasing colonial architecture in the churches, convents and houses.  One evening after large and superbly tender steaks with 4 of the guys, we passed a bar with a gaucho dance. Although it was a tourist show, it was fast and entertaining.

I had one day wandering slowly around by myself with a leisurely breakfast in a plaza café which was welcome as I was still not well from a cold and asthma.  I wandered around the High Mountain Arcaheology Museum with gorgeous objects, mainly to accompany child sacrifices to the after-world, of illas or small votive figurines of animals and people made from silver, gold, shell and onyx as well as clothing from llama or vicuna wool.  There was good information on two children found on nearby Mountains aged 6 and 7 with the 15 year old girl mummified and looking very life like in her temperature controlled glass box. It was surreal to look at her fingers, hair and skin face and think of their journey on the Inca trails and last drink which with a narcotic made them more pliable I believe to be left and freeze to death. On the 2nd day I´d found about a nearby 60ha cloud forest reserve, Reserva del Huaico, and asked our KUMUKA guide to arrange a bird watching trip.  It was expensive but I had an excellent guide and saw various birds such as guans, tanagers and woodpeckers.

CAFAYETE

This was a lovely laid back small town with a shady plaza, cafe bars, ice cream parlour, lots of purple and pink jacaranda trees, pink stone church and dogs asleep in the shade around a green semi oasis of vineyards.  I liked Northern Argentina and could have stayed for longer although whiling away days may well have become tedious. We passed through the Quebrada de Cafayete or rock canyon along the Rio de las Conchos and went back in the afternoon on an optional trip to have a better wander around.  This was a barren, wild landscape of twisted sedimentary strata of sandstones and clays with oxidised iron, copper and sulphur giving hues of reds, greens and yellows.  There were pinnacles and other eroded forms supposedly looking like toads or submarines etc as well as huge gashes in the massive rock faces giving rise to echoing amphitheatres or the so called Throat of the Devil.

QUILMES

This was a large indigenous urban settlement dating from 1000 AD.  The Quilmes peoples successfully integrated with the Inca conquerors but were eventually overrun by the spanish.  They were so cheesed off with the resistance they forced the remaining 2000 people to walk 1500 miles to Buenos Airies and many died on route. The survivors were dumped in a shanty on the edge of BA which is still called Quilmes to this day.

On the way south 3 of us had a brief 30 mins in an excellent Pachamama Museum.  Most people preferred to sleep on the truck but it was a tranquil place with just us there and superb contemporary sculptures and wall paintings etc of indigenous beliefs, such as the Inca Mother and Father whom it is believed originated from Sun Island on Lake Titicaca and drawings of llamas, condors and a huge carved Round Table. The journey southwards went through a high semi arid windswept mountain plateau dropping into a gorgeous rain forest river gorge.

TALAMPAYA AND ISCHIGUALASTO NATIONAL PARK

Another UNESCO World Heritage Site designated for its geological formations and dinosaur fossils.  This is the only place in the world where a complete and undisturbed sequence of continental sediments from the Triassic period 230 million years ago can be seen. This allows for the study of the transition between dinosaurs and ancient mammals.   This was a fantastic lunar type landscape with huge rock walls and strangely eroded rock shapes of red sandstones, thin grey clays and darker volcanic ash formed in a volcanically active floodplain dominated by rivers. I recall the clearly delineated fossil ferns, petroglyphs of animals and people and geometric shapes and lines made by indigenous peoples on the rock walls plus the superbly adapted vegetation such as carob tree species and gorse with guanacos, maras or patagonia hares and grey foxes. The climate is extreme with scorching days to 45 degrees, dropping to -10 at night with just 120mm of rain in flashfloods and a 80kmph zonda wind. The name comes from the Quechua for Dry River of the Tala.

MENDOZA

This was another lovely colonial city with wide, tree lined roads and plazas and much better accommodation.  I recall one hostel was unpleasant for sleeping as the dormitory rooms were small, airless and too hot. One evening was spent lounging on a sofa with the group drinking beer, having a BBQ and watching an Indiana Jones movie.  We jumped on push bikes for a whizz around the outskirts to 2 wineries and sampled the cheaper stuff before pedalling furiously again behind our support vehicle with pounding music and wine on offer through a window!  This I recall well! We finished off at a Hacienda with a small pool and BBQ and athletic ping pong whilst drinking more wine.

I joined A for 3-4 hours of horse riding in the foothills near Mendoza.  I felt I needed to restore a modicum of nerve after my last feeble effort and was given a nice tranquil horse which ate most of the way. I approve of such activity as hope it is a good distraction from galloping off!.  Although I know the horses are on an auto pilot walk, I successfully asked for 6 steps of trot and told it not to eat on the 45th occasion so perhaps I had a modicum of control.  We splashed along a stream and through semi arid rocky landscape on a grey day with a bit of rain.

CHILE!!

This was another long day as took 2-3 hours to get through the very tedious and thorough Border Control.  A superb Andean landscape with snow on the high 5-6000m tops and I had a brief look on Aconcagua.  We stopped for a hamburger lunch at Puenta del Inca, a naturally formed rock bridge over the Rio de las Cuevas.  This was formed from ice and hot springs with the sulphuric water giving the orange and yellow hues.  The bridge was used by the Incas between Chile and Argentina and legend has it that a Chief was trying to find a cure for his ailing son in the healing waters but a torrent blocked the path.  His warriors built a human bridge and his son was healed by the waters but on looking back the warriors had been turned into stone.