A Busy Paddy's Day
Very early (for me) start, as Lisa and I had to be ready to leave by 7:15am. The breakfast at Backpackers' Home in Salta turned out to be even worse than most others, as the bread was scarcely edible, although there were some pastries and cheap & nasty cornflakes as if to try and make up for this. Good thing I wasn't in the mood for too much breakfast, as our guide for the day, Federico, actually turned up a little early so I was flapping around, brushing my teeth and putting the last few things in my daypack, when he turned up. Life was very comfortable for the first part of the trip, as it turned out we were only picking up the other two people taking part after a couple of hours, as they were staying further up towards the border. So I blagged the front seat, and Lisa got to stretch out across the back for a while. Unfortunately, the weather did not look so obliging, with a low cloud ceiling, and the unmistakeable signs of rain to come. However, Federico assured us that we would be fine as soon as we got above 2,000m altitude, and offered to buy us mojitos that evening if it stayed rainy all day! So, after a brief stop near Jujuy to get coffee and more breakfast (a decision which probably saved the rest of the vehicle from a symphony of my stomach rumbles for the morning), we started up the Quebrada de Humahuaca.
Now, I'll write a bit more about Humahuaca Gorge when I get to the bit where I stay there, but suffice to say, very pretty rocks and the like. We, however, turned off right near the beginning of the gorge and took the road that leads up to the Jama Pass into Chile. One consequence of the proximity of this border, and more particularly of that with Bolivia, is the large number of police checkpoints, manned by the Gendarmeria, who apparently serve largely as border police, rather than by the local state/provincial police or the Policia Federal Argentina. We were lucky enough not to be stopped on our way up, though it was noticeable that Federico, who looked as though he had some indígena blood (this is the accepted term for those of native South American descent - they don't appreciate being called indio), took care to take off his sunglasses before approaching any of the checkpoints. Our initial destination, and the place to pick up our other travelling companions for the day, was the village of Purmamurca.
The principal reason for visiting Purmamurca is the surrounding hills, which, due to their varied mineral content, are in various different shades, and one particular area is known as the Hill of Seven Colours. Some of them are more obvious than others, but you can easily pick out red, green, yellow and black. At this point, Federico offered Lisa and me the opportunity to ride in the back try of the pickup as we drove through by the rocks, which we gleefully accepted. And very good it was, too, giving uninterrupted views to all the surrounding hills and getting a wee bit of the wind in our hair and a chance to soak up a bit of sun, for indeed Federico had been correct, and as soon as we'd popped through the ceiling at around 2,000m, the sky was clear and the views were great. After driving (and walking) around the rocks for bit, we headed down into Purmamurca town, where we had 20 minutes or so to look around the market in the town square (the first stereotypically Andean market I'd encountered) while he went and got our travelling companions for the day, who turned out to be two middle-aged Swiss ladies. Bizarrely, though, one of them was Swiss-Argentinian, so spoke the local dialect easily but hardly any English, whilst the other was Swiss-German, spoke reasonable English but hardly any Spanish, and the two of them conversed with each other principally in French!
After leaving Purmamurca town, we carried on with our steady ascent, headed for the pass (not the Jama pass itself, but the precursor, over the pre-Andean range and onto the high plateau known as the altiplano or Puna, which was still at a dizzying 4,170m). To aid in combatting the effects of altitude (given that we'd ascended almost 3,500m!), Federico offered us some coca leaves. Now, some of the more streetwise or chemically-minded amongst you may be aware that coca is the precursor product for cocaine, however (worry not, Mother!) it takes about 40kg of leaves, and extensive processing featuring acid, to make even a gram or so of cocaine. The leaves are used frequently, though, in the Andean countries, either as a tea or chewed up and held in the cheek, for their effects in counteracting altitude sickness. So I tried chewing coca leaves. And it wasn't too bad, until the taste of the damned things started coming through, which was pretty vile, so I got rid of mine and resolved to handle the height by myself. The net result of which was that I got quite light-headed and kept dozing off for the next hour or so, though I did manage to wake up and stagger up to the marker showing the high point of the pass for a photo.
Once we cleared the pass, we descended back to the depths of around 3,700m and continued over to the Salinas Grandes, the salt flats which are one of the few distinctive features of the otherwise fairly barren Puna. These are a sizeable area where the water coming down from the Andes on one side and the pre-Andean cordillera on the other got trapped and as water evaporated, a crust of minerals formed, which is now thick enough to drive on. And the most common mineral is good old Sodium Chloride, meaning the flats are a massive white sheet, very bright on the eyes when you are driving across them up in the back tray of a pickup, as we were once again. The flats are actually exploited for purposes other than tourism, and we could see where sections of the flats had been dug out to form pools, which, via evaporation, became salt pans, allowing salt mining to take place. There was also a store (with that Godsend of travel on the altiplano, toilets) made entirely of salt blocks used as bricks. It seems to work as a relatively substantial building material, but the whiteness doesn't last long as it rapidly soaks up pollution from the air and becomes a murky grey.
After our salty experience, we headed out across the Puna, leaving behind the paved highway and heading along gravel roads as we drove towards the top end of the famous Tren a las Nubes train line. Along the way, we stopped at a local restaurant, run by several indígena families, where we had a very pleasant stew, soup and home-made bread for lunch. Slightly less pleasant than the food was the CD of 80s music to which Federico subjected us, although there was the odd tune I grinned and bellowed along to. We didn't stop in the town of San Antonio de los Cobres itself, the end of the tourist train line, as it is, to be frank, a bit of a hole, but instead started alongside the tracks across the Puna, headed back towards Salta. It is unfortunate that many of the most spectacular parts of the railway, engineering-wise, are remote enough that the road cannot reach them, but the road is also quite impressive as it switch-backs down the mountainside, and it rejoins the railway for the passage through the Quebrada del Toro (Bull Gorge), where we stopped and had a walk on one of the longest viaducts (no trains to run us over, thankfully). And soon after this, we popped back under the cloud-cover and the rain started up again in earnest, so we snoozed a bit on the way back into town.
And snoozing was required, as Lisa and I had an appointment with the Goblin, the local Irish pub in Salta, where we were planning on celebrating St Patrick's Day properly. We grabbed some food first, then got a cab into town (for the princely sum of 3 pesos, about 60p...) and settled into the green-tinged warmth of the Goblin. There we discovered about half-a-dozen Irish, mostly merry and heading towards drunk, and about 10 Aussies and Kiwis, already near-enough paralytic after drinking since around lunchtime. There were also a fair smattering of locals, some of them getting into the spirit and one or two looking confused and horrified. Most notable of those getting into the spirit of things was one middle-aged local guy who was a bit of a rugby fanatic, and thus ended up doing the haka, quite convincingly, with the Kiwis and singing the Fields of Athenry with the Irish (with which I also joined in). Although he also started teaching some of the young locals in the bar the Yogi Bear drinking song, which should really never be sung in polite company (especially if there is something of a fixation on the verses featuring Booboo and Susie...).
Amusingly, though not terribly surprisingly, there was also a small reunion for me, as two of the Irish in the bar were Grainne and Kate, the girls who'd been staying at my hostel in Pucón and had gone up the volcano there. What with them and Roisín and Pete, a very nice couple the latter of whom was resonspible for the first of my shamrock cheek decorations for the evening, and me and Lisa, and Ben and Dee a bit later on, and another English girl called Jen and a New Yorker by the name of Jim, we had quite a pleasant little party, which rolled on satisfyingly into the wee hours, fuelled in my case by caipirinhas and in Lisa's by caipiroskas, until around 4am Lisa suddenly hit a wall, and she, Jen, Jim and I hopped a cab back to the hostel, where I was only too glad to collapse once again in my bed.
Now, I'll write a bit more about Humahuaca Gorge when I get to the bit where I stay there, but suffice to say, very pretty rocks and the like. We, however, turned off right near the beginning of the gorge and took the road that leads up to the Jama Pass into Chile. One consequence of the proximity of this border, and more particularly of that with Bolivia, is the large number of police checkpoints, manned by the Gendarmeria, who apparently serve largely as border police, rather than by the local state/provincial police or the Policia Federal Argentina. We were lucky enough not to be stopped on our way up, though it was noticeable that Federico, who looked as though he had some indígena blood (this is the accepted term for those of native South American descent - they don't appreciate being called indio), took care to take off his sunglasses before approaching any of the checkpoints. Our initial destination, and the place to pick up our other travelling companions for the day, was the village of Purmamurca.
The principal reason for visiting Purmamurca is the surrounding hills, which, due to their varied mineral content, are in various different shades, and one particular area is known as the Hill of Seven Colours. Some of them are more obvious than others, but you can easily pick out red, green, yellow and black. At this point, Federico offered Lisa and me the opportunity to ride in the back try of the pickup as we drove through by the rocks, which we gleefully accepted. And very good it was, too, giving uninterrupted views to all the surrounding hills and getting a wee bit of the wind in our hair and a chance to soak up a bit of sun, for indeed Federico had been correct, and as soon as we'd popped through the ceiling at around 2,000m, the sky was clear and the views were great. After driving (and walking) around the rocks for bit, we headed down into Purmamurca town, where we had 20 minutes or so to look around the market in the town square (the first stereotypically Andean market I'd encountered) while he went and got our travelling companions for the day, who turned out to be two middle-aged Swiss ladies. Bizarrely, though, one of them was Swiss-Argentinian, so spoke the local dialect easily but hardly any English, whilst the other was Swiss-German, spoke reasonable English but hardly any Spanish, and the two of them conversed with each other principally in French!
After leaving Purmamurca town, we carried on with our steady ascent, headed for the pass (not the Jama pass itself, but the precursor, over the pre-Andean range and onto the high plateau known as the altiplano or Puna, which was still at a dizzying 4,170m). To aid in combatting the effects of altitude (given that we'd ascended almost 3,500m!), Federico offered us some coca leaves. Now, some of the more streetwise or chemically-minded amongst you may be aware that coca is the precursor product for cocaine, however (worry not, Mother!) it takes about 40kg of leaves, and extensive processing featuring acid, to make even a gram or so of cocaine. The leaves are used frequently, though, in the Andean countries, either as a tea or chewed up and held in the cheek, for their effects in counteracting altitude sickness. So I tried chewing coca leaves. And it wasn't too bad, until the taste of the damned things started coming through, which was pretty vile, so I got rid of mine and resolved to handle the height by myself. The net result of which was that I got quite light-headed and kept dozing off for the next hour or so, though I did manage to wake up and stagger up to the marker showing the high point of the pass for a photo.
Once we cleared the pass, we descended back to the depths of around 3,700m and continued over to the Salinas Grandes, the salt flats which are one of the few distinctive features of the otherwise fairly barren Puna. These are a sizeable area where the water coming down from the Andes on one side and the pre-Andean cordillera on the other got trapped and as water evaporated, a crust of minerals formed, which is now thick enough to drive on. And the most common mineral is good old Sodium Chloride, meaning the flats are a massive white sheet, very bright on the eyes when you are driving across them up in the back tray of a pickup, as we were once again. The flats are actually exploited for purposes other than tourism, and we could see where sections of the flats had been dug out to form pools, which, via evaporation, became salt pans, allowing salt mining to take place. There was also a store (with that Godsend of travel on the altiplano, toilets) made entirely of salt blocks used as bricks. It seems to work as a relatively substantial building material, but the whiteness doesn't last long as it rapidly soaks up pollution from the air and becomes a murky grey.
After our salty experience, we headed out across the Puna, leaving behind the paved highway and heading along gravel roads as we drove towards the top end of the famous Tren a las Nubes train line. Along the way, we stopped at a local restaurant, run by several indígena families, where we had a very pleasant stew, soup and home-made bread for lunch. Slightly less pleasant than the food was the CD of 80s music to which Federico subjected us, although there was the odd tune I grinned and bellowed along to. We didn't stop in the town of San Antonio de los Cobres itself, the end of the tourist train line, as it is, to be frank, a bit of a hole, but instead started alongside the tracks across the Puna, headed back towards Salta. It is unfortunate that many of the most spectacular parts of the railway, engineering-wise, are remote enough that the road cannot reach them, but the road is also quite impressive as it switch-backs down the mountainside, and it rejoins the railway for the passage through the Quebrada del Toro (Bull Gorge), where we stopped and had a walk on one of the longest viaducts (no trains to run us over, thankfully). And soon after this, we popped back under the cloud-cover and the rain started up again in earnest, so we snoozed a bit on the way back into town.
And snoozing was required, as Lisa and I had an appointment with the Goblin, the local Irish pub in Salta, where we were planning on celebrating St Patrick's Day properly. We grabbed some food first, then got a cab into town (for the princely sum of 3 pesos, about 60p...) and settled into the green-tinged warmth of the Goblin. There we discovered about half-a-dozen Irish, mostly merry and heading towards drunk, and about 10 Aussies and Kiwis, already near-enough paralytic after drinking since around lunchtime. There were also a fair smattering of locals, some of them getting into the spirit and one or two looking confused and horrified. Most notable of those getting into the spirit of things was one middle-aged local guy who was a bit of a rugby fanatic, and thus ended up doing the haka, quite convincingly, with the Kiwis and singing the Fields of Athenry with the Irish (with which I also joined in). Although he also started teaching some of the young locals in the bar the Yogi Bear drinking song, which should really never be sung in polite company (especially if there is something of a fixation on the verses featuring Booboo and Susie...).
Amusingly, though not terribly surprisingly, there was also a small reunion for me, as two of the Irish in the bar were Grainne and Kate, the girls who'd been staying at my hostel in Pucón and had gone up the volcano there. What with them and Roisín and Pete, a very nice couple the latter of whom was resonspible for the first of my shamrock cheek decorations for the evening, and me and Lisa, and Ben and Dee a bit later on, and another English girl called Jen and a New Yorker by the name of Jim, we had quite a pleasant little party, which rolled on satisfyingly into the wee hours, fuelled in my case by caipirinhas and in Lisa's by caipiroskas, until around 4am Lisa suddenly hit a wall, and she, Jen, Jim and I hopped a cab back to the hostel, where I was only too glad to collapse once again in my bed.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
<< Home