After a wonderful few days riding with the Gauchos we left Estancia Los Potreros and headed for Cafayette which is the wine region. We spent an uneventful night bushcamping by a road on what turned out to be a giant dusty ants nest. When we awoke at 6.00am we had company from a family with their horse and cart who had stopped and built a fire beside us. We wondered wondered what they were doing but equally as we brought out our usual kettles, stoves chairs etc and started breakfast they must have thought the same of us.
Throughout the morning we started to wind our way up mountain roads, initially they were tree covered foothills with wild yellow lillies and white peace lillies growing everywhere. As we climbed above 3000m the landscape became more barren with giant cactus fields all around us. We caught our first glimpse of a snow covered Andean peak in the distance before we stopped for lunch in the mountain desert at the ruins at Quilmes. All that remains are terraces of walls in the mountainside with giant cacti throughout. We are spoilt in Europe with our architectural history so whilst this site is of major importance to Argentina, to us the giant cacti were more interesting. Sad but true I´m afraid. Throughout our time in Argentina we have been drinking beer called Quilmes so of course we had to have the obligatory Quilmes in Quilmes.
We continued on our way to Cafayette which is a town in a valley in the foothills of the Andes. In the evening I sat writing my diary with a cold beer in my hand. I had just had a swim and was enjoying the warm evening breeze coming off the mountains which were to my left and right. There were a couple of soft pink clouds and several large flocks of squawking parrots flying around above me. If I held my hands out on either side of me I was reminded of the childhood joke and was amazed to be able to look across and actually find the Andies at the ends of my sleevies!
After a heavy nights drinking around the campfire we woke to go winetasting at 9.00am - nothing like hair of the dog to cure any hangover. We were followed throughout our tour of the Bodegas Etchart by a small black dog who came down into the cellars, up onto the rooves of the giant vats and sat under the barrel tables whilst we began to drink. By 11.00 we had topped up the levels from the night before and wobbled out from the cool dark cellars into the blinding sunlight and heat.
After lunch in Cafayete we drove for about 2hrs and stopped at Salta Rafting which is actually about 2hrs outside Salta. We set up tents and relaxed for the evening with another fantastic Argie Barbie thanks to the guys that run the rafting centre. I have done a fair bit of white water rafting around the world and you tend to find the same types of off the wall rafting nutters and the guys at Salta were no exception. Frank a shaven headed German with 8 dogs was the most reserved. Angel, Carlo and Hector mixed charm and humour with apparently no sense of fear, various tatoos or piercings and the same mad twinkle in their eyes. We rafted in the morning with Falcon a golden retriever on board. Rafting with a canine passenger was a first but always safety conscious they ensured that he had his own customised life jacket and he seemed perfectly at ease. I later saw photos of some of the other dogs, on their own in small kayaks going through the rapids - real white water woofers!
In the afternoon we went canopying which was fantastic fun. It was a series of 10 zip wires which are between 300 - 500m long and are set up in the mountains at about 200-250m high above the ground. After some steep climbing over rocks and along ledges we caught sight of our first wire. I had to stop myself from looking down and wondering how far it was to fall if the wire broke. My stomach started to churn as I began thinking about the first moment that you throw yourself off perfectly good terra firma and into the void. You are harnessed into a rock climbing rig with thick leather gloves and you rest,one hand on the wire behind you to act as a stabiliser and a brake.
The first wire is nerve wracking because of the nagging voice at the back of your mind - what if the wire breaks - at this height the travel insurance would be useless because you wouldn´t be going to hospital. Once you have done one though it was an amazing feeling as you are completely confident in the safety and you can admire the views. It was fantastic to go whizzing between mountain tops with nothing between you and the river 250m below. Normally you are in a seated position with your legs stretched infront but on one of the wires I went "Superman" which entailed going face down with my legs wrapped around the waist of one of the guides behind me - I discovered afterwards they also call it "Canopy Karma Sutra" not very ladylike but fun and it provided the boys with plenty of fodder for jokes. Over 2hrs we hiked and zip wired back to the base with the final wire taking us a couple of feet above our tents and within a few feet of the bar and a cold cerveza enjoyed in the comfort of the hammock by the bar.
On to the city of Salta which is Argentinas 8th city. We stayed at a campsite that is advertised as having the biggest pool in South America. On arrival we discovered that it is so big it takes over a week to fill so it remains empty most of the time. We went out for empanadas at lunch surrounded by families who were all out celebrating the Argentinian equivelent of Mothers Day.
The next day I took a bus into town on my own only to miss the stop and stay on board thinking it would come back towards town. The driver informed me he was going home so I got off to wait for another bus when a taxi pulled up with a woman passenger already on board. I accepted the ride and on the way we stopped for another two passengers. They obviously share cabs like that out here. Salta like the other cities is nothing like what a Londoner like me expects from a city. There are incredibly ornate churches and more colonial buildings still survive than in other cities but much of the colonial style is actually still quite plain.
The next morning we had a slightly later start as Ben our driver had to get the oxygen tanks filled as we were heading up towards the Alti plano. The previous day at the campsite we had helped a family push start their crumbling wreck of a car. Most of the cars in Argentina are relics from the 60s and 70s with more missing than intact,held together literally with wire and tapes. We have been in taxis with windows permanently open because they have lost the winders, or doors with no internal handles that have to be opened from the outside. With true Latin chivalry as we pushed the car at the campsite, a male passenger sat inside whilst the woman did the pushing. The next morning we discovered it was our turn as our truck battery was flat. I didn´t think it was possible to push start a 14ton truck but we did it and were on our way. We were heading north as we make our way towards the Bolivian border.
Quilmes Hotels
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