All shook up

We finally made it to Cachi. We have dirt and dust in every pore and crevice, our insides are all mixed up from bouncing up and down in the tray, and we nearly died once when our driver swerved on the edge of a cliff to miss a truck coming the opposite way. But we made it.

Cachi´s church was full for the Sunday service

Cachi is a little town of white washed houses, adobe houses and cobble streets in the chalchaquí vallies. Not much to see, but its more about the journey than the destination. From the back of the ute, we had uninterrupted views of the valley, including the Los Cardones National Park. More like a moonscape than a landscape, this region's pretty spectacular. Miles and miles of arid land, giant cacti, enormous mountains that look like they have exploded from the ground, and the odd mud brick house. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and our driver seemed pretty sober.

This afternoon we walked to the town's cemetery, perched at the top of a nearby hill. From here, you get some great views of the town and the valley. But, it seems, you also get some pretty good air currents. While we took in the view, around 30 vultures (they look like small eagles) circled overhead, putting on a real show for us. Couldn't ask for much more really.

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Cachi here we come!

We´ve found someone sober enough to drive us to Cachi, and drunk enough to agree to it. The five of us (yep, we found a couple of people from Buenos Aires as stupid as us) are now mentally preparing ourselves for the three hour ride over dirt roads in the back of a ute. Yeeeehaaaa!

Stuck in Angostaco

Carl takes in the view of Angostaco. Ain't nothing for miles.

We made it to Angostaco, only to discover that tonight is the town´s annual wine festival. All of the drivers in town are either drunk already or preparing to get drunk and most doubt that they´ll be capable of driving tomorrow.

On the upside, we managed to score the last room in the town´s one and only hosteria. And the festival could be fun???

A stage has been set up on top of the local dirt football pitch. Giant pyramids of foam are being assembled, and the national anthem has already been sung. Truckloads of people are already arriving from god knows where - the only things we passed on the way here were cacti and rocks, and I reckon we can expect the same all the way to Cachi ... if we ever make it.

Oh no ...

We´re finally travelling on one of those buses that other people laugh at. You know the ones:

• decor and maintenance circa 1970
  
• every inch of it is covered in dust
• the air-con hasn´t worked since 1962, and I´m slightly worried that the vents may fall out of the roof and knock someone out if we go ove hit a bump too quickly
• the windows open just enough to let the exhaust fumes waft in
• it´s overbooked so people are standing and sitting in the aisles.
  

And we´re hungover. We´re travelling the long way from Cafayate to Salta, via Angostaco and Cachi (the main reason for the detour). Most people take the paved road straight up to Salta in full air conditioned comfort, then hop on another air conditioned bus to Cachi. But that means doubling back a bit and we hate that. Plus it´s time for another adventure. It´s meant to take us two hours to rattle our way by dirt road to Angostaco. From there, we need to hitch a ride to Cachi. Fingers crossed!

Get your rocks off

29 going on 21

Things are a little foggy this morning. I have visions of wine bottles, wine flavoured ice-cream, vineyards and cheese platters. The pain in my backside tells me that the bike-riding was a little tough for my 29-year old body. My red nose tells me that we shouldn´t have attempted to ride to vineyards at midday.

One year older. Still none the wiser.

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The battle for Quilmes

Amaicha de Valle is about halfway between Tafi de Valle and Cafayate. A mere blip in most travellers minds. But, on a whim, we decided to stop there yesterday and go in search of Quilmes, the site of one of Argentina´s best preserved pre-Columbian ruins.

Quilmes - part of the site has been badly reconstructed but you get the idea

Amazingly, we managed to find a English speaking guide to take us to the ruins - a Swiss girl who´d stopped in Amaicha de Valle a year earlier, fallen in love with one of the local tour operators, and stayed to help him build his business. We were gobsmacked. Amaicha de Valle has one tiny plaza, a couple of bad restaurants and a whole bunch of dust. Almost nothing else. We asked her how on earth she kept herself occupied. The boredom was taking its toll, she said. We´d met her at a difficult time. She had a big decision to make - she couldn´t stay in Amaicha de Valle for much longer or she might go crazy. She hadn´t spoken English for months though, and she seemed grateful for the chance to chat with us.

As it turns out, the local tour operator she had fallen in love with was the son of one of the local chiefs. His father had passed on the history of the region to him and he was committed to keeping that history alive. Nearby Quilmes is an important part of that history, but privatisation and poor education have taken a hefty toll on the site.

The Quilmes tribe picked their spot wisely - they could spot those pesky Spaniards a mile away

The ruins of Quilmes date from about 1000AD. In its heyday, more than 2000 indigenous families lived here. The house of the chief sat at the top of a large hill with views in all directions. The town itself spread down the hill and into the valley, surrounded by a large stone wall. Its defensive position kept the Incas and the Spaniards at bay for about 150 years. Finally, the Spaniards worked out a way to cut the food and water supply to the town. When the women and children eventually ventured down in search of supplies, they were captured and killed. Seeing this from their vantage point on the hill, the men came to their aid and Quilmes fell. Two thousand people from Quilmes - those still alive after the battle - were marched 1500km on foot to Buenos Aires, where they could be more easily controlled by the Spanish. Very few survived.

Fifteen years ago the Government leased the ruins to an Argentine businessman. The lease was to last ten years and he was meant to pay a tiny percentage of his profits to the local people each month. He built a hotel and museum on top of ancient burial grounds. He added a pool which drained the nearest village of its water and he never paid them a cent. Last month the villagers blockaded the one road into the site and reclaimed it as their own. A week before our visit they reopened the ruins (not the hotel or the museum) to tourists and began conducting their own tours of the site. Unfortunately, many of the guides know only the history they have been taught in school, but they´ll improve with time. Thankfully our swiss guide, who has been working with archeologists and researchers, helped us with the rest.

A cheese festival with no cheese

Picturesque Tafi de Valle

Tafi de Valle is set in a pretty little valley in north west Argentina. Normally it´s a pretty quiet place. People from Tucuman (the nearest city) come here to escape the summer heat, hike, horse ride or just chill out and take in the scenery.

But last night things turned a little loco in little Tafe. Tafe, you see, is famous for its homemade goats cheese and last night was the town´s annual cheese festival. The whole town was abuzz. The hostel owner offered impromptu lessons in the region´s traditional dance. We had visions of so much cheesy cheesyness: cheese statues, cheese fountains, cheese rolling, you name it.

We were wrong. We arrived at midnight and the festival was in full swing. A band belted out pena (folkloric music). Dancers stomped about on stage. Smuggled booze was being chugged from coke bottles. Foam spray shot out across the crowds. Foam covered kids ran screaming through the stalls. But guess what? Just one little tiny cheese stand near the entrance and no other cheese to be seen. Not even a wayward Kraft single. Go figure.

Iguazu falls

Garganta del Diablo

Normal people would simply marvel at a natural wonder like Iguazu falls, but not us. We spent a significant portion of our visit pondering this very question and we reckon the answer is definitely yes … unless you had the neck of a formula one driver (seriously, most of those guys have obscenely large necks, particularly in comparison to the size of their heads).

The view from the Brazilian side of the falls

Iguazu falls are bloody massive, and if you stood directly underneath them it would definitely hurt. A lot. Of course, we’ve got no real evidence to support this theory. But we did get a speedboat to take us as close to the base of the falls as possible and we reckon we’re spot on.

On the speed boat

The water is a chaotic, swirling mass of bubbles, and there is so much spray you can’t see the person next to you. From the riverbank, it actually looks like the boat disappears for a few seconds. And don’t even get me started on the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat). An enormous semicircle of waterfalls and the centrepiece of the falls, this beast seriously has to be seen from all angles to be believed. Next to it, you feel tiny and vulnerable.

Another speedboat heads under the falls

The falls are surrounded by 55,000 hectares of subtropical rainforest. It gave us our first glimpse of South American wildlife: an alligator hiding in the shallow water, a small snake sunning itself on a rock, lizards and little animals that looked like guinea pigs scampering across walkways, and funny looking anteaters scavenging for food in the bins. One side belongs to Argentina, the other Brazil. We visited both and we’re equally impressed!

Carnaval in sleepy San Ignacio Mini

We knew something was up when the hotel room starting vibrating and we heard the distant thump of a bass.

We’d arrived in San Ignacio Mini at about lunchtime. This sleepy little town on the road to Iguazu falls has but one attraction – the ruins of a 16th/17th century Jesuit mission – which can be seen in a couple of hours. After that, there’s nothing. The streets are empty, except for the usual canine posse lazing in the shade. The restaurants shut as soon as the tour buses leave. Absolutely nothing else to do, but resign yourself to a quiet night in. Or so we thought …

The ruins of San Ignacio Mini

The thumping started at about 11pm. At midnight, we heard drums, some samba beats, and some old dude singing bad country pop songs. When we popped our heads out of our room half an hour later, the street outside was teeming with people and sequins. Foam-covered kids ran past squealing. Carnaval had arrived in San Ignacio Mini, and we’d almost missed it! This certainly wasn’t Rio but it was as close as we were going get. We headed out, grabbed a couple of tickets and claimed a place along the parade route. Within seconds, we were attacked by a couple of kids brandishing cans of spray foam. I copped an ear full. Carl got it in the back. Other people wiped foam from their empanadas, and the parade got under way.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude. Samba is samba, and carnaval is all about wearing as little as possible and shaking your booty to the beat. Normally we'd be all for it. But in these parts, the average age of dancers in the parade was about eight, and some are even younger. As they samba-ed their way down the street in teeny weeny sequined g-strings and the crowd cheered, we didn't know where to look. We couldn't help thinking that this would be illegal in some countries ...

PS. We forgot the take our camera out so no photos of the parade, but its probably better that way!