The valley of arrow
Buenos dias
We are now in the northwest corner of Argentina, in the province of Salta, which lies close to the borders of Chile and Bolivia. The area is semi arid in most places, but some areas receive a lot of rain, like Salta, the city. Right now, its the rainy season, so everything is green and lush and their are lots of crops growing. The main crops are tobacco, grapes (some awesome high altitude wines), peppers, corn and soy beans, onions and garlic are big too. So are cattle and goats.
We started in Salta city which was one of the main trade cities for the Spanish as it was close to Peru, Bolivia, Chile and natural resources. It has a very nice main square with well preserved colonial buildings and even a church or two! The MAAM is here, which is the museum which houses the Inca children that were found buried on top on of one the the mountains which forms the border with Peru. The Inca picked the most perfect children, fed them beer to make them sleep and then buried them at 20,000 feet. They are perfectly preserved. We saw the Lightening Girl who was struck by lightening while she was buried. It looks like she is sleeping. She is perfectly cryogenically preserved. Sorry, no pictures, but if you google her, I am sure you can see an awesome picture of her. They also found ( on a National Geographic expedition in 1999) a young boy and a teenaged girl. It was a great honour to be chosen and the Inca did not think that they died but ascended to the next life.
Early the next morning, we headed south to visit some colonial small towns and see some amazing natural rock formations. Every little town has a main square and yes, a church. They are quite pretty and peaceful. This is the area where the indigenous peoples live, they look a lot like the Peruvians, which is not surprising as at one time the whole area from Bolivia to the bottom of Argentina where under Inca rule. They are lovely friendly people who live a simple life of mostly farming. They always have a smile and a wave for you. This area produces some of the finest weavings and sliver craft.
It is famous for the red poncho, which is a sign of resistance against the Spanish rule.
We have visited a few great wineries, one Colome is the highest altitude vineyard in the world, one of their vineyards is at 3100 m. It was also the first winery dating from 1831. The area is known for the Torrentes grape, which produces a sweet dry wine (like a dry riesling). They also produce some awesome cab sav and malbecs.
We have been following the famous routa 40 which travels from north to south Argentina. Luckily, we have a 4x4 because alot of the roads have been washed away or flooded by the torrential rains last week. Sometimes, routa 40 is a lovely paved highway and othertimes its a goat track. It passes through some of the most amazing landscapes. The park of Los Coldones ( a type of cactus) where the road follows a dead straight Inca road. The Incas built their roads at night with torches in order to make them perfectly straight. We stopped in a patch of cacti and it was like standing amongst a group of silent sentinels watching over the desert, it was eerie and awe inspiring at the same time. The hills are many colours,, red, green, brown, beige, yellow and all different shapes and sizes. We drove through the valley of arrows today, named for the arrow shaped rocks which rise out of the earth. This is a geologist's dream!
WE follow the Calchaqui river which at times is a trickle and other times quite mighty. WE have traveled over bridges that were under water last week. Other times we have to ford the river our vehicle.
Its a great place!
Kim and Dan
Lots of problems with the internet connections, sorry no pictures. I will add them when I get a better connection
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