Up and away by 8am, we watch the sun rise over dusty vineyards, casting the dominating Andean spine a pastel pink. Packs of wild dogs strut around joined to long shadows, looking for grub, a ruck or some nookie. Today we're driving Northwest to the catchily named 'Cachi', via the Cactus national park. If all goes to plan we'll back at grandma's in Salta, in time for dinner.
Argentina's Highway 40 runs a good 5000km from La Quiaca on the Northern border with Bolivia all the way to Ushuia on the Southern tip. The full run makes a popular road trip for motorcyclists. However, a mere 2km outside Cafayatte, the nice smooth asphalt stops. On the sketchy map that came with the car the line's gone from red to green. That means it's 'el pasaje de la tierra' (dirt roads) from here all the way back to Salta. Personally, I'd have coloured them the other way around.
Roads are littered with stones of varying sizes, and driving demands a new level of concentration so as not to puncture tyres on naughty sharp rocks. Occasionally, while rounding a large rock, it can suddenly turn into a startled rodent and dash off the road.
Open-backed trucks storm past, filled with grapes, winepickers or both, kicking up a huge cloud of dust that finds its way through our open windows and temporarily blind us. Tiny adobe (mud house) pueblos dot the roads, some even with Romanesque mud pillars and arches. Isolated brown houses in a brown landscape, sometimes with a couple drinking morning coffee outside by a brightly coloured washing line. These folk must scratch a minimal living off this empty dry land. All they have in abundance is space.
We stop at a parada for a quick coffee. We are the only guests , sat under one of the two outdoor parasol covered tables. The toothless lady running the show seems to spend her days sweeping dust out of her café and watering the barren sandy dirt outside, to the tango music she cranks up inside.
Several wild grazing donkeys and a rogue llama later we start making our way through a bizarre lunar landscape. The kind of place you'd expect the early series of Star Trek to film Jim Kirk and his boys beaming down to some 'strange new world' (where the new guy without a laser gun is guaranteed to get dead by some angry 'alien' whom more than resembles a man in a rubber suit).
Chalky white and deep red rocks jut from the ground at mad angles, sitting like the giant arrow feathers. We twist and turn through windswept trails stopping for pictures every time the view goes mental. Once we stopped to spy a crazy view and stumble across a huge expanse of long thin red peppers (pimentos), packed together drying under the sun, probably destined to become paprika.
After the lunar bit the valley opens out, going all barren rolling plains of the American mid-west. Half an hour later we're edging the cactus national park we pass endless giant wild-west style cacti (some almost 5m high). Apart from lonely soaring birds, small emanciated foxes and the odd field of of horny cows and horses we don't see a great deal of fauna. We met a few vehicles, usually at speed on a blind bends, exchanging polite waves. More than once we passed jacked cars attaching the spare. The worry is what to do in the event of two punctures. Then you're screwed. It's a long way to anywhere and a long way from everywhere.
We take a late lunch of goat stew and bbq beef asado in the Cachi main plaza. A cute little place in the Valles Calchaquíes with a respectable 18th century church. It's Easter Sunday and a big weekend for these heavily Catholic cats. Though it seems the celebrations are tonight and the locals are currently plodding towards their respective siestas.
Pleasantly filled with goat, we hit a mountain pass over to the enchanted valley. Rising quickly over yellow-green plains that stretch off forever, we slip under the clouds and feel the temperature drop. At the passes peak, 3348m above sea level, we begin the windy descent through the enchanted valley. The views resemble those rolling emerald views you see of Ireland's west coast, but on steroids.
Driving from sea level to 3km up and back down again does strange things to the cavities of the bonse. Ears blocked, sinuses went a bit wrong and for a while I thought my brain had grown, cos it felt real tight. But no such luck. A hundred curves later, cut into giant green cloudy peaks, we pull in to see why the road is full of parked cars. Turns out we're up the hill from an Easter Rodeo. Down below we watch loads of gaucho nutters, in hats and chaps, riding horses that clearly don't want to be ridden. Mounting seemingly placid blindfolded horses, they remove the constraints and the wild horses go fully loco, helped along by a sound whipping by the gaucho. Some dudes stay on their madly bucking bronco for an impressive length of time, before an inevitable and painful looking fall. Others horses buck and charge the surrounding crowds, sending Argeys scattering. Most entertaining.
A retired yank couple who've been waiting hours for a bus (that probably won't come) ask if they can hitch back to Salta. We oblige and they slightly too talkatively lay down their life stories. Back in Salta they gratefully fill our depleted tank and I bravely navigate Saltas streets by night. Not hugely aware of how junctions work, it seems the bravest / fastest vehicle gets right of way. One wrong turn and a trip the wrong way down a long one-way and we're back at grandma Formia's digs, ready for quick meat and sleep.
What a quality day. When I finally get the photos up you'll see what I'm on about...
Barns
No comments:
Post a Comment