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.