Monday morning we woke to torrential rain that had been pouring down all night in Salta. Our hire car arrived at nine, (not the one year old golf with USB port for iPod that we’d been promised) but a 60000 mile Chevrolet piece of junk. You’d think I’d have known better having worked for a car rental company for thirteen years! The chap in the hostel assured us that after thirty minutes we’d reach the mountains and the sun would break a through… and he was right! I was a little cautious about hiring a car initially, a) driving on the other side and b) having seen how people drive in BA. It was fine however, and all three of us shared the driving for the two days. We headed up route 51 towards San Antonio de Los Cobres via the Quebrada del Torro. The road is not all Tarmac/asphalt and the sections which were rubble track made progress slow. The scenery compensated for that as did first sighting of a Llama and cactus plants! We just needed an Ennio Morricone soundtrack to complete the experience, which if we’d had USB connection we would have! And as it was the radio lost signal from any stations after ten minutes into the mountains.
San Antonio is a dusty mining town which feels a little like a ghost town since the demise of the mines and the railway. At San Antonio we managed to break the wire/button system to open the boot, with all of our stuff in the boot! The key did not operate the boot, and the seats seemed unable to pop forward to get to our stuff and water out that way. We assured ourselves we could find someone at our night stop who could fix it. We had a very basic lunch at San Antonio and then headed to the Viaduct La Polvorilla, which is the high point of the “Tren a las Nubes” at 4220 feet ASL. The train now just operates for tourists on a fairly inconsistent basis.
We left San Antonio and headed out on a long stretch of rubble/sand track which was tough driving, and pretty slow. The landscape kept us captivated, as did more Llama and Donkeys. We were due to reach a fork in a road, which after an hour we assumed we must have missed. Then we reached the fork and we realised how long this bit of the journey was going to take. We had wanted to reach some salt flats but by 4.30pm we had not got there. We then saw them but not a route to actually reach them. A dust cloud storm on the horizon was also slightly worrying. Suddenly we saw a dip in the road, and the car bounced and took a little air. I was in the passenger seat stupidly not wearing a seat belt smashed my head into the windscreen. My head somehow was fine, the windscreen not so much. At that point we decided the Salt flats were not happening and we just needed to get to the town we planned on staying that night. We had passed two cars in three hours, we had no phones or coverage, the water and food was in the boot, as was all of our warm clothes. For forty minutes we drove in silence till we finally hit the Tarmac! At which point we all admitted to each other we were a little worried we were lost and a bit scared!
I took over driving again, and on the map looked like a very easy half hour drive to the town of
Purmamarca. There’s a reason contours were invented….this basic tourist map had none and the drive took us from 2300 to 4200, the temperature dropped from 30 to 6 degrees. Again the scenery of the Cuesta del Lipan canyon descent and ascent was magnificent but we were a bit beyond taking photos, tired and the light was fading.
We reached Purmamarca at 7.30 and set off to find a car mechanic to get the boot situation sorted. I had one last try and managed to figure out how to drop the seats down to get into the boot. Phew!!!! We treated ourselves to a nice hostel and a room for just the three of us with ensuite as it was the last night of our travels as a trio together. We then found a great restaurant by chance with a trio of musicians playing a combination of very traditional music with a contemporary vibe. We bought a CD from them which helped the next days road trip. We all had fillet of Llama, it was excellent to say the least! By chance we’d bumped into some students I’d met in BA,who joined our table…so we had a pretty good night. We enjoyed the “vino tinto de regional”. Served pretty cold, fruity and very easy to drink! Coupled with the altitude, eventful day and our last night we were nicely merry! Needless to day we slept very well!
In the morning we were really glad to have chosen Purmamarca to stay in. It’s a lovely small town with pre-hispanic origins and the back drop the “Cerro de los siete Colores” was stunning. It was hard to think we were still in Argentina. The landscape and the people had changed so much, we were definitely in Quechua country.
We visited two other small towns further up the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Humahuaca and Tilcara. Again the mountain valley gorge and the rock colours were staggering. We had to rush back to Salta as Susan had to fly back to BA the following morning and the online transaction had failed. The girls slept whilst I hit the pedal to the metal and enjoyed the mountain valley descent. Ticket purchased after forty minutes at Salta airport we checked into a hostel and waited for the car hire guys to collect the scrapper.
We had to pay for the window and boot button/cable. Cheap car rental not so cheap. Price of three cocktails back in Cardiff each..,let’s move on.
End of eight days travelling together 3665 kms. Iguazu, Corrientes, Salta, Horse riding, road trip, three nights on a bus, five hostels, one ranch. A truly memorable first week on the road with two great girls. Thank you Ilana and Susanne!!!
BexBAtoRio 