A week away in Salta

Salta, Argentina

After Mom and Dad headed back home Duda and I had to decide what we were going to do with our time before our trip to Brazil with Maxine. The choice was to stay in Puerto Iguazu or take a bus somewhere and see Argentina. Obviously, the choice was easy to make. So at about the same time that Mom and Dad were carrying their luggage (including the infamous lost pieces that made their way to BA) through the snow in Alberta, we were on a bus heading to Salta and the mountains.

The bus ride was 24 hours long, but luckily we were able to sleep through most of it and we arrived in Salta in good shape early the next day. Our hostel was nice (pool and bar ;) ) and we quickly showered, put our stuff away and wandered the city. You could tell right away that Salta takes care of itself a lot better than Iguazu (probably better than BA too). The old colonial buildings were well maintained and lit up at night. The main square was clean and full of people enjoying the summer weather. There was even a gondola that took people from a large park by the bus station up to the top of a mountain for 2 pesos (about 75 cents). From there we were able to see the entire city and the mountains surrounding it.

For a bit of perspective, Salta is one of the oldest cities in Argentina. It was settled as a result of its location in a temperate mountain valley where livestock could be raised. It was here that thousands of mules were raised in order to be sold to the massive silver mines of Potosi to the north, in what is now Bolivia. Since then in suffered a decline of sorts as after independence its location was rather isolated and it took a while for the railway to extend to it. But recently it has experienced a revival from tourism and new industries.

But back to our trip. After the gondola, we took a city bus to the nearby village of San Lorenzo. The village is supposed to be picturesque. It also has nice hiking. We didn't know that when we got on the bus and as a result were wearing flip-flops that one can't exactly go mountaineering in. So we just sat and had a beer instead and promised ourselves we would come back later.

Back in Salta we settled into our hostel and had a good time meeting the other travellers. The nice thing about travelling in Argentina and staying in hostels is that one actually meets other travellers from Argentina staying in hostels. In my experience elsewhere hostels tend to be full of foreigners. This was a nice change. It meant that we got to practice our Spanish.

The next day was supposed to be a productive one where we got all our excursions into the mountains organized and where we got stuff booked for Brazil with Maxine. That didn't really happen. We barely got are act together to book out trip the next day to the Salinas (salt flats). It was a bit complicated to do anything as we knew the hostel overcharged for trips so we had to go shopping around. Instead, we ended up spending most of the day in San Lorenzo hiking. A much better use of our time.

San Lorenzo was a fantastic valley. The trail was poorly marked but when we asked a guide there he said "if you stick close to the stream you will be fine". Silly us, we took him literally and when the trail disappeared a couple minutes after it began we proceeded to have fun following the stream up the mountain. More than an hour later we found a trail again and kept on hiking. Turns out we may have found a wrong trail or veered up again as we soon ran into a wandering bull. We decided to go around the bull and keep on hiking up a switchback which we hoped would take us to a lookout. Not only did the switchback take us nowhere but the bull decided he didn't like us and followed us up the trail. We didn't want to keep going up and we couldn't go down as the bull was there. It was a pretty stupid situation. When we finally managed to get around the bull we gave up on the trail and headed back. It was only as we backtracked that we found the trail. It was clearly marked, had lots of signs and was full of old ladies walking with little kids. We, on the other hand, were all dirty and wet from our trek through the bush. Turns out that the trail started before the information centre and the sign advertising a trail to a lookout, naturally. We decided to have another beer after this.

After a late night out at the hostel we woke up early for our excursion to the mountains. We had booked a tour that would take us into Jujuy (who-who-y) Province to Pumamarca, then up the road to the Salinas (salt flats) then into San Antonio de los Cobres (some high village)and down the route of the Train to the Clouds with a lot of stops along the way. If you have Google Earth I would recommend checking out this route so you can get the magnitude of the route we went up. It was intense and we were thankful we booked the tour instead of renting a car like we had originally planned on.

The ride from Sata to Jujuy was non eventful as it was on the highway. I, of course, slept. But from San Salvador de Jujuy (the capital) into the mountains the route got to be extraordinary. We started out in a fairly lush forest, but ever so slowly as we proceeded one could watch the vegetation slowly melt away. First the trees turned coniferous, then meadows became widespread, then short little grass. Suddenly we were driving through a barren landscape of cactus and coloured mountains. The hills are full of different minerals and when they are exposed to the sun they oxidize into different colours. The lack of vegetation means that these colours are fully exposed. At one point the hills are a greenish-blue (copper) that changes to red (iron) to white (?) or brown (probably just dirt) or black (more dirt?).

We stopped at the town of Pumamarca to take pictures of the "Hill of Seven Colours". The town also offered a nice place to wander for half an hour. As we wandered through the town we came to a boy selling plates with his baby llama. Now, in most Spanish speaking countries a "llama" is pronounced "yama", but in Argentina the "ll" is "sh". So it is pronounced "shama". For this reason Duda and I had been really excited about being able to say that we saw a shama. When we saw the boy and his baby shama we proceeded to get very excited, take a bunch of pictures and in general be silly tourists. It was only after our photo session that the boy told us "no es una llama, es un cordero." Its not a llama, its a goat. We felt pretty stupid, but at least we bought some nice souvenirs from him and we have a couple nice pictures with a baby goat.

After this little town the road proceeded up the mountain. Literally. In the course of 25km of hair-raising switchbacks it rose 2000m in altitude before finally peaking at 4170m above sea-level. At this elevation you could feel the lack of oxygen with every breath. After (foolishly) running to take a picture of the view from the top of the hill I was left out of breath and panting for the next 20 minutes.

The road then gently sloped down till we arrived at the massive salt flats. These are not as big as the ones in Bolivia, but they are still big enough. Though the air temperature was not that warm the heat of the sun and the bright reflection meant that you could feel your skin being burnt as soon as we stepped on the salt. Luckily, we came prepared! The German guy (Frank) who was on the tour with us lent us some sun screen and we were on our way. There really is not much to write about this as, when it comes down to it, it was just a giant plane of salt. Still, it was a cool experience and you will have to check out the pictures to get any sort of idea of the environment there. Oh! At the salt flats there was a "Salt 'Shama'". We made sure it was a llama, and then took pictures with it.

From the Salinas our trip took us to the sorry village of San Antonio de los Cobres. The other villages we stopped at were obviously poor, but there was an economy and it was despite the poverty it was clear that people were getting buy and could lead a somewhat comfortable life. This place was different. It was empty, there was nothing to see, to buy to do. Only one place to eat and you could tell that alcoholism and hopelessness prevailed. It was a bit of a depressing window into the lives of so many.

After this we started to drive back down the mountains towards Salta. This drive down was not as extreme as the drive up. As we drove down we stopped at the ruins of an ancient indigenous village. The guide told us that this was the second most important archaeological site in South America, after Machu Pichu. I think that is bull but it is still interesting. Apparently, the entire town was abandoned and no one knows why. But for such an "important site" there was little to know marking and one could wander around the entire site with total freedom. We had the place to ourselves so we got to explore a bit. I just wish that there would have been explanations of what exactly we were looking at as we had no idea and neither did the guide. From there we kept on heading towards the city with one short stop at a bridge. We were so dead by this time that we passed out before 10.

The next day was another early morning (I have had too many of them). We took a bus up to the town of Cachi with Sol, an Argentine girl we had met, where we were to spend the night. The ride up was another crazy road through the mountains. Cachi itself was a fantastic little town. Picturesque and clean we were able to stay there for a full day and night. We rented bikes and spent the day exploring the city and the surrounding countryside. The bike ride was quite lengthy.

We had decided to bike 6 km up to a lookout over the city. We were under the impression that at "aguadango" or something you could see the entire valley and town. We biked and biked and biked but never seemed to arrive there. We even made a new friend in the form of a dog that decided to follow us everywhere. Finally, we decided to stop and ask for directions at a hotel we passed by. The owner explained that the place we were looking for does not exist. Rather, "agua-something" is the entire country side. Ooops. He was extremely nice and offered us water and even let us chill by the pool and rest. It was pretty great. After getting some R&R we biked downhill back to Cachi where we had some supper, some wine. Cachi was one of the nicest places I have ever been, but it is hard to convey it in words. It was isolated in the middle of the mountains, but it had a character and relaxed atmosphere that made it a joy to visit. Pictures don't really capture the atmoshpere either. But I am sure I will remember the place for ever.

After this we just headed back to the city got our tickets and left Salta for Iguazu the next day.

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008

This Christmas was spent travelling with Mom and Dad through Brazil. They had planned to come down to South America to see me and Machu Pichu. They didn’t quite make it there but we still had a good time together. But before I get to that, I will quickly fill in the blanks on what I have been getting up to since the last time I wrote.

After I got back from Rio and Sao Paulo, I spent the rest of the time finishing up my job at the English School. Much of the time was spent teaching the kids how to sing English songs at the year-end pageant. Needless to say it was pretty funny. Not only can’t I sing but neither could the kids. The best were the Kindergarten kids singing Jingle Bells. They can sing the entire song even though they have no idea what the words mean.

After school ended we just hung around until my parents arrived. Sara and Ana, a couple of CIDA interns that Duda and Ai had met in Welland came to stay with us so we got to party with them. It was fun to show more people around the town.

But back to the main event: the trip with Mom and Dad. A day after they flew out I woke up to an email saying that they were stuck in New York, where they were not supposed to be, not sure where they were going. They were supposed to be going to Lima to meet up with a tour group, but there had been mechanical problems and human error and they were unable to get there. Unfortunately, their luggage did make it to Lima, but Mom and Dad could only get to Buenos Aires. Then to make matters worse when they called about the luggage the airline informed them that it had been lost.
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They say that they had a good time nonetheless: they saw the sights and ate the food and did all that BA has to offer. But I am sure that they had more fun with us here in the north.

Upon Mom and Dad’s arrival at the airport here (with a surprising amount of luggage I might add) we got them settled and took them on a quick tour of the town. That didn’t take long and in the evening we went for dinner at Colour and listened to some live music. It was from more Andean than Argentine, but that seemed appropriate to their situation and Dad bought two CDs.

The next day was spent at the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls. We did the ‘Adventure Tour’ which involved a safari ride through the jungle and a jet boat ride up the canyon into the falls. It was a bit pricy but the jet boat ride was a great way to see the falls. They drive you right under the spray and everyone gets thoroughly soaked. I was told it puts the Maid of the Mist to shame.

I had never been to this side of the falls before so I got to see everything for the first time. On the other side of the falls one can not really walk into the falls and there are not many trails. It is more of a panoramic walk where you can get sweeping views. But on the Argentine side there are trails climbing along the falls, both at their bases and at the tops. You can spend the entire day walking through the forest getting close to the (literally) hundreds of falls.

The Argentine section also includes a narrow-gage railway that carries one from the trail complex up and around the river bend to another trail (really a walking bridge) that crosses the river so that one can gaze down at the Devil’s Throat, the biggest waterfall of Iguazu and the border between the two countries. It was up here, safely away from the drop, that we saw a crocodile dozing in the water.

We were especially lucky as it was Christmas Eve so the entire park was relatively empty. This meant there were no lines and we didn’t have to push our way through the park. It also meant that it was hard to find a place for dinner. We ended up having to eat at the fairly mediocre restaurant that stayed open. But such is life when away.

Christmas Day brought sunshine and thirty degree temperatures, so we were not feeling very Christmas-y. We jumped the border to Brazil (without a visa so I hope Lula isn’t reading this) and drove to the Itaipu Dam. Itaipu is one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams. Three-Gorges (in China) just surpassed it in size but Itaipu continues to produce more electricity in a year than Three-Gorges ever will. Or so they told us. It is also one of the 7 Modern Engineering Wonders of the World (along with the CN tower).

Itaipu was no Iguazu but it was definitely more than worth the tour and the time. The structure itself is so immense that it is difficult to get your head around it. Pictures don’t do it justice until you look closely and see that the small building you at the base of it is actually a fairly large multi-story office building. And that that this building is dwarfed by the massive concrete structure behind it. Anyway it is big. Our tour took us around it, on top of it, inside it and at the end we got to go all the way down it to one of the turbines to watch it spin and create electricity. Sounds nerdy but it was actually very cool. I swear.

This was followed by a trip to the Brazilian side of the falls so Mom and Dad could see it from all angles. As I mentioned earlier, this side does not have as much trails so it was a lot quicker of a trip. Which was a good thing as the heat that day was incredible. Definitely not like Christmas at home. A good part of the afternoon after seeing the panoramic views was spent at the top of the falls having a cold drink on the river bank and watching the water drift away.

On the 27th we woke up early to drop our passports of at the Brazilian consulate so we could get visas to enter the country. At one we headed off for the long drive in our rented Chevy Life (think of a very very small and simple car) to Curitiba where we were staying the night. The country side was nice to look at (fields, mountains, forests etc etc) but the drive still a long one to make when you start in the afternoon. And unfortunately, after six hours, and nine road tolls, when we finally arrived in Curitiba we found out that our hotel had given our rooms away. This was especially ridiculous as we had thought ahead and phoned to let them know we would be arriving late so that this exact thing did not happen. We were just lucky a nearby hotel had room so we could stay there without too much hassle. Don’t stay at the Hotel Lumini if you are ever in Curitba as it was pretty frustrating.

The next day was yet another early morning. After a quick stop at Curitiba’s botanical gardens we headed for the coast and the Ilha do Mel. Curitiba is on a high plateau (~1000m) but is only an hours drive from the coast. So the road down is a fairly steep drop. It made for a picturesque drive as we snaked down the mountain side towards the ocean.

However, once at the coast we were still not at our destination. The Ilha do Mel (Island of Honey) contains a national park and does not allow any motorized vehicles or more than 5000 people at a time. We had to park the car and take a 30 min. ferry ride across to the island and then walk with our luggage to the hotel (about 20min).

All the extra effort was worth it. Our accommodation made up for any bad luck we had with the hotel in Curitiba. The entire place had a laid-back beachy atmosphere, but it was all well maintained and there was all the comforts that we could want, but without any pretension. We were a 1 min walk from the beach and in our room one could shower and watch the waves at the same. It made for a great base to enjoy an island retreat.

Our time on the island was spent relaxing and taking in the sun. We didn’t do much of anything that first day but eat and play on the sand. Which I think is a perfect way to celebrate the Christmas holidays (even if the day was a bit off). We managed to hike up to an old lighthouse (from 1870) and to an even older (1673?) fort that are on the island. Duda and I also got to enjoy the nightlife on the island. We went to a chill party on the beach. It was just an old shack selling beer, a couple guys on the guitar and a bunch of people having fun. Our kind of party.

On the 29th we had to start heading back, but as we had all day to make it back to Curitiba we made sure to take our time leaving the island, this meant we squeezed in some time at the beach in the AM. On our drive back we also took our time and made a quick detour to a small town that is in the hills between the coast and Curitiba. We were sure glad we did as the town was very picturesque. It had a small little river running through, a nice old square, some great buildings and a lot of history: the perfect place for a pit stop. Dad even managed to find some great stones (the semi-precious, crystal kind) at great prices.

We also managed to have supper at a churrascaria (choo-hass-ka-ree-ah) in Curitiba that evening. A churrasacria is a brazilian meat buffet. You pay a set price (we payed about 14 bucks each) and get all you can eat food. At the place we went to this included a salad bar of immense proportions (they had everything from hummus to perogies to sushi to about 10 kinds of cheese) and when you sit down severs come to your table with skillets of freshly barbequed meat of every cut (from sirloin steak to roast to ribs to chicken heart to bacon-wrapped turkey) which they served directly onto your plate. And they keep on coming until you are so stuffed you couldn’t eat a chicken wing. It was heaven.

We were exhausted after all this food but we decided to drive and find one of the city’s landmarks: a Wire Opera house. We got lost along the way and ended up finding another landmark: the Eye-Museum. I don’t have good pictures of either so if you are curious you will have to google them. The Eye Museum (in reality it is named after an architect whose name now eludes me) is an art gallery, but it has a central tower that literally looks like an eye. The Wire Opera House is built out of glass and metal tubing above a lake in an old quarry entered. It is entered via a long metal bridge and is a very interesting bit of architecture. It was night so none of our photos turned out well but it is worth checking out on the web.

The next day we woke up early, yet again, for our drive back to Iguazu. We took a different root, so got to see some more country side and also managed to stop in a little town for some food but it was another long day of driving. We were just lucky to have Duda driving: he knew how to ask for directions and how to deal with the crazy antics of the other drivers. We took Mom and Dad out for supper at our favourite restaurant (Bambu) and then passed out after another long day. They flew out the next day in the afternoon and before their plane was off the ground I was taking a nap after an exhausting week of travel.

As of my writing they are safe at home and their baggage has been finally found! It is now in BA so at least all is not lost. Duda and I don’t want to stick around Puerto Iguazu doing nothing so we are taking a quick trip to Salta and then coming back in time to meet our friend from Canada who is coming down. We will be going to Brazil (which rules) to hang out on the beach and see some cool sights. I probably won’t blog till when she leaves, though maybe I will have energy.

I hope whoever has managed to read all of this has enjoyed hearing about my trip. I don’t write much but when I do I don’t spare many details. Just leave some comments so I know I am not just typing into the ether! Also, it is now 1:22 AM so I haven’t proofread this very well so ignore any mistakes you may have found.

Happy 2009!