Visiting Argentina Part 4

8/18/16

I wake up with a headache. I had been warned about the possibility, given the altitude. A few ibuprofen and a strong cafe con leche push it away and I spend my last few hours in Humahuaca walking around the town. There are some areas outside of the town square and to the west of the train tracks where people have shops selling meat, fruits and vegetables. Visiting these kinds of areas is always interesting to me when I travel. When you get away from the tourist shops and sights, you can get a better idea of how people actually live, what’s important to them. The food market is a simple reminder of the daily routine that happens everywhere — people gotta eat. There are also streets lined with small open-faced shops selling clothes and other items. Here and there are small squares and central plazas, some with simple, lovely statuary.

I also pay a last visit to the Monumento, which looks very different now that the sun is coming from another direction. Just before I leave for the bus station, for fun I open Pokemon Go while accessing the Hostal’s wifi. To my amazement even here, in this town of 10,000 people, miles away from any major city, there are several Pokemon Go Pokestops and even a couple of gyms. Wow. I’m not sure what that says about the pervasiveness of technology today, but it seems there’s something there…

I go to the bus station and buy a sandwich and some water and wait. And wait. And wait. The bus is almost an hour late. But after I get on and we leave town I will better understand why. While I wait I get to watch the slow assembly of the economy that grows up around the bus station. Several people arrive over the hour, toting various things to be sold to hungry and thirsty travelers — empanadas, sandwiches, water and juice, pizza, and other sweets. On a micro level, this is an interesting part of the local economy.

Once on the bus, and as we enter the highway, the bus slows and then pulls over. Two gendarmes board and ask to see everyone’s documents. I’m not sure what they’re searching for, but we pass with no issues. Possibly this happens because the bus I’m on is coming from Bolivia and people sometimes try to travel illegally across the border. In any case, a few stops like this would easily delay a bus’ schedule.

The rest of the ride is uneventful and although I’m on the wrong side of the bus again, I do get some pictures and views of the Quebrada as we descend out of the mountains. Upon arriving back in Salta I check into the Hotel Giralda and make a beeline for the plaza to get to the Museo de Arqueologica de las Montañas Altas. This museum is famous for a fantastic display of Incan burial rites that surround human sacrifices. A few decades ago explorers found the burial site of three children who had been sacrificed on Mt. Llullaillaco. Laid to rest at an elevation of over 6000 meters, time, cold, dryness, and elevation led to the children and their associated burial items being preserved in amazing, high-quality condition. The museum has several rooms explaining the culture, the materials and arts, the relationship of these peoples to their Gods and the mountains, and the specific rites involved in the sacrifice of these children.

At any given time only one of the three is part of the exhibit, and everything is kept under highly controlled conditions to ensure the mummies remain preserved. It’s a little unnerving and also thought-provoking to walk through the exhibit, to think about their last days and thoughts as they were feted before being carried to the top of a mountain and left to the Gods. And then to see one of the mummies, so well preserved that facial expressions are clear.

And then I buy a llama refrigerator magnet.

I’ve come to realize, at this late point in life, that I don’t actually have to eat everything put in front of me, and in fact I will enjoy the meal the more for it. Walking back, I pass through the Plaza Gral. Don Martín Miguel de Güemes and take a picture of the beautifully lit Palacio Legislativo. I get some ice cream and play Pokemon Go. There are a lot of creatures that are quite rare in Seattle that I am finding readily here. I think it’s the combination of altitude, a rocky and dry environment, and possibly something geological as well. Most of the common creatures I know aren’t here at all.

8/19/16

Today I wake up early because I’ve booked an all-day tour that will be picking me up sometime between 7 and 7:40AM. Fortunately, although breakfast technically doesn’t start until 7, the front desk person is happy to provide me with cafe con leche, bread and medialunas when I come down at 6:20. I finish quickly, go to get my stuff and wait. Fortunately for me, I and three other people are the first to be picked up, so the wait isn’t long. The van picks up a total of 14 tourists, one each from Japan, New Zealand and the U.K., two from France, two from Italy, two from Australia, and a family of four from Buenos Aires that includes a two month old baby and a little girl whom I guess is about 4. Our guide, Ayill, is a friendly native of Salta who gives our tour commentary in both Spanish and English.

When we begin to enter the Quebrada, we get a taste of what’s to come. Huge outcroppings of red rock stab up to the sky, their exposed sedimentary layers at forty-five degree angles to the horizon, attesting to the upheaval that built these mountains. Our guide describes how the Nazca and Pacific plates collided tens of millions of years ago with the Pacific plate sliding under the Nazca, leading to so many peaks and ridges being pushed up, sometimes beyond forty-five degrees.

The rock is highly colored, he describes, due to the different minerals in the mountains, to the presence of different varieties of fossils making different kinds of colors (white for shells, blue-green for algae), and to water seeping into the porous rock and speeding up oxidation. After this upheaval, water and wind and frost have sculpted the rock in strange and amazing ways. In some places rivulets have cut deeply into the mountainsides, creating what appear to be the folds of a monstrously large curtain of rock. In other places the different degrees of hardness of the different layers of rock lead to pillars with bulging heads like capstones on columns.

We stop several times along this thirty or forty mile stretch to see different features. At one area, two different features, la Garganta del Diablo and el Anfiteatro, are both huge sculpted columnar bowls formed by a twin waterfall that’s now long gone. The exposed layers are fascinating and our guide demonstrates how el Anfiteatro got its name by putting on an impromptu singing performance with another guide from another tour coach. They aren’t half bad. At other areas we see wide panoramic landscapes full of mesas and cliffs and contrasting fields and bands of colors.

One stop provides some history along with the views. At a high point in the road we pull over at Tres Cruces, where three tall white crosses flank a hill with a crumbling red path leading to a peak providing panoramic views over the valley. Our guide gathers us around and relates how in the past, the Incas would create sacrifices to Pachamama in the form of pits dug and filled with offerings like food and other items. The pits would then be covered with a cairn of stones to mark the location. When the Spaniards arrived, they knocked down the cairns wherever they found them and would erect three crosses instead. This is one such place. It’s also a spectacular viewpoint, looking over eroded valleys, pillars, mesas, and every shade of red, burnt orange, yellow and off-white.

We reach Cafayate around noon and, after a brief cruise through town to get a look at their colonial streets full of hostels, we head out of town to a winery. The Finca Quara Ranch is in a beautiful location with expansive fields of grapes all around, the foothills of the Andes creating a background to the west, and a sprawling winery building. Our guide takes us on a tour, providing the background for how the area around Cafayate gets it terroir: minerals in the ground including mica, relatively high altitude growing regions (we’re at about 1600 meters above sea level), hot, strong sun in the summer and cold nights, and specific grapes — largely Torrontes and also some Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and a few others. At the crushing tanks, he pulls some dried must from underneath the massive reservoirs and shows how the grape seeds are all still intact — an important element in keeping the juice of good quality, and something that was discovered back when people crushed grapes by foot.

Inside we taste two varieties, a white, late harvest table wine that’s fruity and sweet; and a Malbec Reserva that has strong tannins and a deeper edge. Here I learn a new trick: when smelling the red, our guide suggests we cap the glass with one hand before swirling and then make a gap between our hand and the glass and stick our noses right into that. It’s an interesting technique and seems to keep more of the volatiles available for smelling.

After we finish we head to Cafayate for lunch. I have a delicious locro, which is a pumpkin soup with posole and Lima beans and a stewed pigs foot. Whole foot. After we’re given an hour to explore and I walk around the town square, which is lined with restaurants, tour companies, a few wine stores, heladarías and stores selling artisan merchandise. It’s hot outside and eventually I end up at our meeting place in the shade of the large iglesia to escape the sun. Looking around, I can’t help contrasting this town with Humahuaca. Both have similar population sizes, but Cafayate has paved streets and poured sidewalks and many more buildings in a modern style. It seems clear that wine tourism has brought a prosperity to this place. Another reminder that so much of economics is local.

The ride home is quiet. Everyone’s tired, and we only stop a few times — once to feed some llamas, and to visit servicios as needed. The canyons and mountains of the Quebrada are even more lovely in the light of the setting sun, but once again I’m on the wrong side of the bus for the best views. Oh well. When we get back I have a simple supper of empanadas at a hole-in-the-wall cafe and enjoy them quite a lot. After, I grab a beer in a bar-cafe and some dessert. I get a flan made with condensed milk. It comes surrounded by whipped cream and with a large dollop of incredibly sweet, thick, dulce de leche. I have heard that Argentinians love their sweets and I’m beginning to realize how much. Among other things, for an eight ounce cup of tea I’m often given two large bags of sugar, the equivalent of 4 or 5 of the packets we use in the US.

After, I walk around the town square a bit more. It’s Friday night and people are out well after 10pm. Given that it’s winter and yet most days here have been in the 80s, I can understand how the siesta/late night culture evolved. Back in my room I push my still drying socks (I’m doing laundry) to the side and go to bed.

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