Manoeuvre, Mirror, (Maybe) Signal

Driving in Argentina is ...interesting. While not as crazy as, say, Colombia (let alone Asia), we have quickly learnt that things are quite different here than at home. Firstly, normal road rules don't really apply. At roundabouts and so on, the general rule seems to be whoever goes fastest, or is most pushy, has the right of way. And for Argentinian drivers, it isn't the usual mirror, signal, manoeuvre, but manoeuvre first, then have a look in the mirror and signal if you feel like it.

Galloping horse and llama! On the way to Cachi

Secondly, nearly all of the towns in the country (and in fact the whole continent) use a grid system of roads, but there are virtually no traffic lights. So every time you come to a junction, you have to slow down dramatically in case something comes shooting out in front of you. It's quite frustrating! Instead, the authorities opt to put traffic lights at seemingly random places where they are totally unnecessary. We got stopped at 10 different sets on a 5km stretch on the way out of Calilegua, all of them interminably long and completely redundant!

Roads / rivers, from the top of the pass going to Cachi

Thirdly, Argentina is FULL of police checks. We've noticed this on buses before - every so often, your bus will be stopped and police will come on board, search the bus, ask a few people for ID, etc. In the car, we realised just how many police stops there are! Literally every few km there would be police in the road, signalling at us to slow down. On 90% of occasions, they would wave us straight on again just as we'd nearly come to a halt, obviously recognising the standard tourist rental car (everyone renting a car here has exactly the same one - a Chevrolet Classic). We got stopped properly twice, and only once asked for any documents. The silly thing is, they didn't even want to see Kev's driving licence, only the rental car stuff and his passport! We met another English couple who'd shown the police their UK licences and been met with total confusion and asked for their passports instead. It would doubtless have been fine for me to drive then!

One of the many little chapels we passed along the roads in the north

The even more stupid thing police-wise is that at siesta time (roughly 12.30 - 4pm),  and any time after 7pm, the police all shut up shop and the roads are totally clear. It would thus seem obvious that if you were planning any dodgy dealings, you would just need to drive at siesta time or at night. How many drug smugglers, or whatever it is they are looking for, do they actually catch with these checks? We wonder why they bother with all this at all - perhaps it is just to provide lots of people with employment as roadside police officers!

Colourful mountains and lots of cacti! In Los Cardones National Park

Another issue that has made driving interesting, of course, is the road surfaces. A lot of places we've wanted to visit have been down pretty dodgy, unpaved gravel roads. On a couple of occasions, we heard a loud clank and got out, fearing the worst - massive dent, burst tyre, etc. One time we drove through a huge patch of mud, and the mud then gradually dried and came off the wheels, making a continuous spattering noise so we were we convinced we'd got something stuck in the wheel. Another time, we noticed a petrol smell inside the car, and after two days of this thought we must have got a small hole in the petrol tank. We took the car to a mechanic, who said it was just that the petrol tank had been overfilled. Phew. And on our last day with the car, we suddenly noticed two little clear marks, like water drops, on the windscreen, that weren't coming off with the windscreen wipers... Alarm bells rang - we were convinced we'd managed to chip the windscreen! Fortunately, when we got out to look, we discovered they were in fact just some tree sap that we could clean off. Big relief! The car is being picked up today, and as far as we can tell has survived its time with us unscathed. Let's hope the rental company agrees.

Pretty butterfly in Calilegua National Park

Enough about driving. What about the places we have visited in our last few days with the car? When Kev last wrote, we had just left the spectacular Quebrada de Humahuaca region, in the far north. Our next stopping point was Calilegua National Park, down at only 600m altitude and a totally different climate to the cold and aridity of Humahuaca. Calilegua encompasses a large, protected region of cloud forest and we had been looking forward to some hiking there. But alas, when we got to the national park, only 4 of the 10 hiking trails were open. The rest, including all of the longer ones, had been closed due to flooding a few weeks ago. We were disappointed, but made the best of things by doing a short walk linking together a couple of the trails that were open. Calilegua is a haven of biodiversity, especially with respect to birds - there are over 250 species here, and birdwatchers come from all over the country.  We heard plenty of birds, but saw very few in the park itself. Ironically, we saw more birds in the town that is the base for the park - several toucans and parrots in the trees!

Cactus filled plain and colourful mountains, in Los Cardones National Park 

From Calilegua, we drove all the way back down to Salta, and spent a night there before continuing on to the small village of Cachi, out to the west on the way to Cafayate via the scenic route. This was mostly along a paved road, luckily, with only 20-30km unmade. The road wound up to a 3500m pass, through fantastic scenery that began quite green and became more arid and desert like as we got higher. We passed through Los Cardones National Park, named for the Cardón cactus, of which there were loads! At one point it was just a huge plain, covered in cacti, and framed by the mountains in the distance. Pretty cool. Other parts of the journey took in some quite volcanic looking landscapes that reminded us of Pali Aike National Park in Chile.

Little cemetery in Cachi

Cachi itself was a very pleasant little village, extremely quiet during low season. I think we met most of the (5 or 6) tourists there on the first afternoon as we strolled around the centre! It's hard to say what was so great about Cachi, but we really liked it - it had an amazingly relaxed, sleepy feel, as well as being very pretty with its traditional adobe buildings and lovely little square. We didn't do much there, other than a couple of walks, one to get a view of the subdued, purple coloured mountains behind the village, and the second to a nice viewpoint of the village itself. It was beautiful seeing the bright green squares of some of the fields of crops down by the village, against the barren backdrop of the hills all around.

Pretty avenue in Molinos, en route from Cachi to Cafayate

In Cachi we met an older English couple on holiday, bemoaning the terrible state of the road from Salta. We didn't dare tell them that the roads got a lot worse in the north! We met them again in another small village, Molinos, the next day, on the way south to Cafayate. This trip from Cachi to Cafayate looked on the map like it wouldn't be too arduous - it was roughly the same distance as from Salta to Cachi (160km). However, we hadn't quite realised just how bad the road was. This was 160km down the Argentina's famous Ruta 40, which stretches all the way down the west of the country, nearly 5000km in total. We'd read plenty of horror stories about Ruta 40 when we were in Patagonia, but been pleasantly surprised - most of the road down that end had been paved since our guidebook was published.

On Ruta 40 heading towards Cafayate

Sadly, the same could not be said about this end of Ruta 40! While the road began in not too bad a state, it got progressively worse after we met the English couple again in Molinos, which is about 40km south from Cachi. The middle 60km or so of the road was dire. This was the section where we heard several loud bangs and feared the worst, and where we got mud all over the car! We actually passed a machine that was meant to be flattening the road surface, but all it was doing was pushing all the sand and stones into a heap in the middle, forcing you to remain on one side of the road at all times regardless of how bad it was.  Hmm. Still, the state of the road was mitigated by the absolutely breathtaking scenery, and eventually we made it to Cafayate, in a total of 6 hours. Everyone else we'd met in Cachi had also survived the road with their rental cars, so things could have been a lot worse!

Crazy rock formations along Ruta 40

Cafayate is famous for two things - wine, and a spectacular canyon (the Quebrada de las Conchas). We duly took advantage of both these things. On our first full day Kev had a break from driving and we spent the afternoon winetasting. Sounds idyllic, but was actually a little frustrating! We went out at around 1.30pm, and found ALL the wineries in town were closed for siesta until 3 or 4. The Argentinian siesta is a bit of a joke - it happens everywhere in the country, regardless of the weather (it's about 15 degrees in Cafayate at the moment) and regardless of any thought for business. Cafayate is a very touristy town, the tourists come to visit the wineries - but do they think to open the wineries all day? Nope. Only 10-12am and 3-5pm. They must be missing out on a ton of business.

El Esteco winery in Cafayate

We did eventually make it to 3 different wineries later in the afternoon. The wine here is excellent, especially the Malbec (for which Argentina is famous, obviously) and the Torrontés, a white grape variety we'd not come across before. The wine tastings though, were less excellent - the people working at the wineries clearly didn't care in the slightest about our being there. There was no enthusiasm, no information, no anything really! Just 'here's your wine, drink up'. There was also a bit of a lack of knowledge. We were sampling a Torrontés in the first winery, and I commented that it was quite dry and tasted similar to a Sauvignon Blanc. The guy looked confused, and, I kid you not, said that he had never heard of Sauvignon Blanc, and the only white wine they made there was Torrontés. How can you work in the wine industry and not have heard of one of the most famous varieties of white wine worldwide?! Pretty funny, we thought.

Pretty scenery our hike near Cafayate

We also did a nice hike a few km out of town, up a small canyon passing several waterfalls. It was great fun - more of a rock climb in places than a walk! We were advised to get a guide, but decided to go it alone and enjoyed it all the more for the challenge of trying to work out where the path went. We also drove through the big canyon, the Quebrada de las Conchas, admiring the otherworldly landscapes. The scenery round Humahuaca was unbelievable, but this was equally so! Amazing formations of red sandstone, looking so much like slightly eroded pillars, pinnacles and other man-made features that it was hard to believe they were natural. The highlights were two huge hollows carved out of the rock, with layers upon layers of twisted rock forming two massive spaces like amphitheatres. The acoustics were incredible!

The Garganta del Diablo formation, in the Quebrada de las Conchas

We are still in Cafayate, planning to do another wine tasting or two today before we head south tomorrow. Where to is still to be decided. The problem is that none of the buses from Cafayate go where we want to - so we are going to have to rethink our route a little. We are still ultimately aiming for Mendoza, where we hope to reunite with our London friends Ralph and Shehnaaz in the next week or two.

Another lovely view in the Quebrada de las Conchas

Mountains Through a Kaleidoscope

Exploring the northwest of Argentina feels a lot different to the rest of the country. It has a much larger indigenous population, and the sounds, tastes and buildings could belong to any of the other nearby countries - the north of Chile, or the south of Perú or Bolivia. The main cities are Salta and San Salvador de Jujuy (or just Jujuy), but there is a string of small towns following the long Quebrada de Humahuaca ravine north towards the Chilean and Bolivian borders.

The Quebrada de Humahuaca, from Tilcara

We arrived in Salta from Corrientes with the intention of hiring a car to explore the region before heading south. Originally, our plan was to drive all the way 1000+km south to Mendoza, but the fee for leaving the car there made it prohibitively expensive. Also, I didn't fancy driving the whole way - Jo wasn't able to take the wheel as her licence was stolen in Perú. Instead, we decided to just take the car around the surrounding area and leave it in Cafayate, just 200km away.

The road up to the Hornical

Salta had the feel of a lot of the other Andean cities that we've liked along the way, like Arequipa in Perú or Sucre in Bolivia. It even has a cable car to the top of the nearby hill, which seems to be a trend in many South American cities (La Paz, Quito, Medellín, Rio de Janeiro, etc). Our highlight, though, was the High Mountain Archaeological Museum (or MAAM - the Spanish acronym). It contains the remains of two children sacrificed by the Inca to their mountain gods. They were buried at the top of the region's highest mountain, at 6739m, and their bodies and the intricate grave goods have been perfectly preserved in the freezing temperatures.

Salta's take on the ubiquitous cable car

We left Salta in our hire car, driving north along the Quebrada de Humahuaca on the RN9. We soon found that, although the main road was in good condition, almost anything off the side of it was less so. Trying to get to the Lagunas de Yala, we had to turn round along one dirt road as it had been completely covered by a landslide. We did make it there a different way, making slow progress along another dirt road as we tried to protect our car from any flying pebbles. It was worth it for the great views along the valley from the winding mountain roads, even if the lagunas weren't that spectacular.

Not this way, then

The real reason for visiting this area is to see the celebrated coloured mountains. The most famous of these is the Hill of the Seven Colours rising above the small town of Purmamarca. The hill certainly lives up to its name! As this is probably the most accessible of the coloured mountains, it is also the most visited. Many of the towns in this area have been overrun by stalls of llama wool knitted into every form imaginable. This didn't prevent us from enjoying the spectacular hill and the drive past the town (and more coloured valley walls) up to the Argentinian salt flats, the Salinas Grandes.

Only Seven colours?

The salt flats, although not as big or as well known as those at Uyuni in Bolivia, are still an impressive sight. They stretch miles into the distance, with no point of reference until the mountains on the horizon. This was where we first discovered that cars don't run so well at 4000m above sea level, needing a lot more effort to get up the hills! 

Walking across the Salina Grande

The next time we went this high was to yet another coloured mountain, called the Hornocal, following a tip from an English couple to whom we got chatting in a restaurant in Tilcara. After a long hour drive along another gravel track outside of the town of Humahuaca, the view suddenly appeared before us of one of the most jaw-dropping sights of our trip so far. The entire opposite side of the valley was like a giant kaleidoscope. The Hornocal is also called the Hill of the Fourteen Colours, rather trumping the Seven in Purmamarca! It was relatively quiet and doesn't appear in so many guidebooks as the other hill, maybe because of the more difficult location.

The Hornocal

We had based ourselves in the small town of Tilcara, which is perfectly positioned to drive to many of the sights in the region. It is also home to a Pucará - a pre-Inca fort - looking over the Quebrada. Unfortunately, it was misguidedly reconstructed in the 1950s and isn't viewed as particularly authentic. However, because of its strategic position, it does have fantastic views over the entire valley. The whole Quebrada de Humahuaca has been listed by UNESCO, not so much for its natural beauty, but because of its archaeological sites. It has been in continuous use for over 10,000 years as an important route down from the Andean highlands to the lowlands of the south of the continent.

The reconstructed Pucará de Tilcara

After finishing driving around the dry, desert-like Quebrada, we are now moving across to the more humid, jungle-like Calilegua National Park. We will then be heading south towards the wine growing regions of Cafayate and Mendoza.

A closer view of the Hornical