Posts for May, 2010

We spent the day at the campground.

We spent a bit of time exploring some of the outer parts of Mendoza this morning looking for other campgrounds and one of the Spas that we had heard about. We will visit one of these Spas when we return to Mendoza in a few days.

The weather gods were good to us. When we first woke, the morning was crystal clear affording us some good views of the mountain. This really is a big mountain, we stood at the lookout at 2900m looking upwards another 4000m to the summit - that's almost like having Mt Rainier starting at 10,000ft.

There is not much to say about today, we spent it at the dealers waiting for the work to be completed. Boring but no problem.

We woke to an overcast sky and mist, the weather forecast I had seen yesterday turned out to be correct, today was not as warm as yesterday.

It was a cold night, but as soon as we woke we could see that today was going to be better weather than yesterday - the sky was clear and bright sun was touching the tops of the mountains. Once we got out of the vehicle we saw that there was a dusting of fresh snow on the mountains as little as 500' above us. Guess that explains why we felt the night was cold.

Argentina uses only one time zone. So for us here in the west of the country the sun is not rising until well after 7:40 - and hence we are not rising until sometimes after 8:30. This morning the late sun, contributed to a slow start so that by the time we got going we barely made it the 30 kms to our spa appointment at 12:00.

Between negotiating Mendoza's streets and traffic we made two note worthy visits today. The first called, Cerro De Gloria, a large and very impressive hill top monument to General San Martin, assorted other generals and the Army of the Andes, Ejerçito de los Andes, that fought the war of independence against Spain.

Before leaving Mendoza we thought we would make one last visit to some of the inner city parks, but police had closed off many of the roads so we eventually gave up.

The highlight of the day was the town and shrine of Difunta Correa. You may have noticed from time to time I have include in this journal pictures of road side shrines that are composed of hundreds, sometimes thousands of plastic drink bottles. As I think I have explained before these are shrines to a women who followed her husband to war and dies of privation along the way - the legend is that her body was found with her child still alive suckling at her breast. The shrines are to her. Well today we found the ultimate example of such a shrine, close to the site of her death. It started out as a cross on a hill but today it is a full blown town, with post office, school, gas station and of course lots of souvenir shops. The shrine is composed of numerous crosses, a large fire pit for burning candles, thousands of plaques, thousands of license plates and hundreds of small doll sized houses, plus the inevitable bottles of water. All these left as offerings at the shrine.

The beautiful sunset of last night was complemented with a similarly beautiful sunrise this morning.

Our next stop was Parque Nacional Talampaya north through more arid country from last nights camp. This park can only be visited as part of a tour, so we joined a group of about 20 in the small bus and headed up the paved road into the park. The road did not last long and then we were in the bed of the Rio Talampaya bouncing along through sand and boulders. We spent the next 3 hours in a gorge with 150 m vertical red sandstone sides, looking at the rock formations, petroglyphs, condors, and nandu's (large flightless birds). It was a spectacular place one of the best gorges we have visited.

A cold night and early start got us underway before 9:00. Not far north we rejoined the famous Ruta 40 and for many miles traveled on nice wide paved road. However this eventually ceased and we found ourselves on a narrow gravel road winding through a small but spectacular mountain range of red sandstone and red granite. Unfortunately the photos don't do the scenery justice but I have included them anyway.

Before leaving the Londres area we visited the ruins at El Shincal. There are only a few walls and some stairways up to two lookouts remaining. The stone work is much rougher than the usual Inca stone work we have seen. Climbing up onto the lookouts gave very good views of the valley south and east, and perhaps that is why the village was built here - good protection.

From Amaicha we turned southish to visit the town of Tafi Del Valle an apparent summer retreat for the residents of the nearby city of Tucuman. This was a quite surprising excursion. From Amaicha in the desert with day time temperatures around 80 ° F we climbed into the mountains and mist to temperatures that got as low as 34 ° F. Even in Tafi, which is at the same latitude and elevation as Amaicha the temperature was only 40° F.

We were told yesterday that it never rains here. Moreover the landscape is consistent with that statement, and the locals and indigenous peoples raise animals not crops because of the dry conditions. So we were more than a little surprised this morning when we woke to grey skies and a light drizzle.

No rain today - it dawned bright, clear and still. There was fresh snow on the surrounding mountains.

Today we followed Ruta 40 nearly 100 miles north along the valley of the Rio Calchaqui. Though Ruta 40 returned to its tradition of a dusty gravel, and at times rough surface, that sometimes was barely wide enough for a single vehicle, it was a fabulous day. The scenery was magnificent, a green and mostly cultivated wide river flat surrounded by high desert mountains that had been carved into all kinds of shapes by wind and rain.

I was excited about the scenery from yesterday when we headed east along Ruta 33 from Cachi towards Salta, thinking that today would be a bit of let down. How wrong I was. Ruta 33 climbed steadily into a range of mountains called Cumbre De Obispo - these appeared insignificant on our map - but turned out to be quite something. The road topped out at 3400 m before beginning a hair raising descent into Cueste del Obispo along a gravel road with many many tight hairpins - 1st gear most of the way.

We spent a lot of the day trying to get various wifi and internet connections working fast enough to do what we needed - a bit frustrating and boring.

Tuesday next, May 25th or 25 de Mayo, is the bicentenary of Argentine independence from Spain. Monday is also a celebration day and hence combined with the weekend the Argentines have a 4 day fiesta starting tomorrow. We have seen national flags being put up in preparation for the celebrations for the past week or so as we have traveled through various large and small towns. But today the imminent festival was evident with crowds of people, including large numbers of teenagers in school uniforms, around the main plaza in downtown Salta. We were in tow for internet and other shopping chores.

Overnight we got a taste of the bicentennial celebrations. A local disco played loud music until 5:00 am. We could not so much hear it as feel it. The bass tones actually made parts of the Tiger resonate in sympathy with the music. It would be an understatement to say that the entertainment made sleeping a little difficult.

Last night was cold, well below freezing, the wind eventually dropped and we were treated to a bright moonlit night with star filled skies. Not that we saw much of it, we stayed inside staying warm.

What a beautiful day! Despite overnight temperatures well below freezing, by 11:00 the sun had warmed the air, it was 70°F and we were in t-shirts.

Today is the big day, 25 de Mayo - Argentine Bicentennial.

Still waiting for insurance, so today we decided to do some sightseeing by vehicle.

Time to move on, but our plans have changed - and they probably will again before long.

Our journey today continued across the Andean highlands to San Pedro de Atacama. It's hard to capture the beauty, barrenness and spectacle of the scenery. We travelled at between 4000 and almost 5000 metres (13,000-16,000ft) most of the day, surrounded by higher barren multicolored mountains, the occasional salt pan and little habitation.

We were up and away early this morning to give ourselves plenty of daylight for our first foray onto Bolivian roads. We have heard so many horror stories about these roads and this is apparently one of the worst areas of the country.

Another change of plans - today we decided to take the plunge and follow the trail north rather than return to Chile as was our original plan - why did this feel like a plunge. We had no GPS way points, poor maps and no idea how far to the next fuel source. But there are many tour company Toyotas so we did not feel too bad about the prospects.

We were up and away early this morning looking forward to a shower in Uyuni - we hoped.