Tren a las Nubes – Salta, Argentina
March 30, 2010
Every guide book I’d read said that if you go to North Argentina you can’t miss Salta, but they never really explained why in a way that I found satisfactory. Supposedly it was very European and the landscape was beautiful. Fine, but isn’t all of Argentina? Despite Lonely Planet’s vague descriptions of the greatness of Salta we headed our way their via yet another overnight bus. Gotta love those 1st class 20+ hour bus rides!
We were only allotting two days in Salta which seemed a bit ridiculous considering how long we drove to get there. But I really wanted to ride the Tren a las Nubes, or Train to the Clouds. Sounds magical, right? Maybe we’d see the Carebears up there!!
Our train adventure began at 6:30 AM in the morning and lasted until 11 PM at night. It was one seriously long excursion. But first, we took in the sites of Salta.
Salta truly is a lovely town, perhaps my favorite in all of Argentina. Like Goldie Locks would say, it’s “just right”. The buildings aren’t too tall, the town isn’t too small, the restaurants aren’t too ritzy or too provincial, the people are friendly, the museums excellent and the architecture is bits of lovely and bits of horrid – just as I’d come to expect of the best of South American cities. I imagine if Lucas and I were Argentineans and we’d tired of the Buenos Aires pace, Salta is where we’d move to.
One museum in particular, the High Andes museum or something like that, featured three astonishingly well preserved mummies from the Incan culture in the area. You could see the fingernails and eyelashes on these things. Amazing! They were discovered in 1999 on a high altitude expedition, frozen in the ground, most likely as Incan sacrifices.
For anyone thinking of taking the Tren a las Nubes, make sure you get a Hostelling International Card. It’s worth 15% off – a savings of about $18 and the card only cost $16. Pretty easy math. Plus, we get a price break at future HI hostels for the next year. It would have also given us 10% off the NaviMag back in Chile… wish we’d known that then!
The train was pretty comfy. We sat back in our chairs and watched the sun light up the landscape as we sipped coffee and snacked on baked goods. The scenery was pretty awesome. I don’t think Lucas sat down for more than two minutes the entire trip. He kept bopping between one window and the next taking photo after photo.
We saw hundreds of the same Giant Cacti that we’d seen in the San Juan Provence. I just love the way the light is catching them in this photo.
Most of the terrain we traveled through was pretty stark. Very Eastern Washington-esque. The dry side of mountains look pretty much the same everywhere. It’s funny how the more you travel, the more similarities you find between different parts of the world and places from your own home turf.
As we got to higher altitudes, the staff passed out coca leaves and gave a demonstration on how to effectively use them to decrease the risk of altitude sickness. Yes, coca leaves are used to make cocaine. No, one leaf isn’t going to give you a buzz even remotely close to what cocaine would… you’d need a garbage sack full to do that, apparently. Lucas tried the coca, I wasn’t a firm believer and skipped it. No need to feel like a cow chewing its cud if you don’t need to. For all those interested, you fold the leaf into a small straw shape chew it a bit so it becomes flat and then stick it between your teeth and gums. Kind of like a baseball player uses chew. Yuck.
Here is a photo of one of the small town we passed. I think it had a population of like, two.
Part of the way we traveled parallel to a road. Those who don’t want to spring the big bucks for the train squash themselves into minivans and drive up the mountain range taking photos of the train. Doesn’t sound likely nearly as much fun to me!
Before we’d even left on our “round the world” adventures, Lucas found a photo on flickr or somewhere that he liked of a guy sticking his head out of a train. The guy had long hair like Lucas and it was billowing all around. We’d really wanted to take a similar photo and thought the Tren a las Nubes might provide just the opportunity. Unfortunately, it moves at about 15 miles per hour. Not exactly fast enough to get any sort of billowing hair going on. Oh well.
Here I am at the mountain range looking happy. And below you can see all of the other tourists milling about checking out handicrafts that were for sale. This point marks an elevation of 4,200 meters or 13,750 feet.
At first Lucas and I were milling about with everyone else. We bought a hand woven shall and then started to walk up to the viewpoint. Then very rapidly I felt completely exhausted and my vision pinholed to the smallest prick of light. Essentially, my world went black. I knew I was prone to altitude sickness so I’d taken some diamox earlier, but apparently it wasn’t an adequate prevention. Lucas had to help me hobble down to the medic train car. Embarrassing! Our friend wasn’t quite as fortunate, she didn’t have a Lucas looking out for her and she fainted! Good thing they had fresh oxygen on board. Yum!
After we’d gone back down a few hundred meters I started to feel better, though I didn’t venture off the train again. Lucas got off at the next sight seeing stop and snapped a few shots of the locals.
He thought these girls were just so adorable. These sticks that they were selling were supposedly like viagra. Kind of a strange image when you know that about their wares.
The llama caught this woman by surprise when he decided to sample her snack. She smiled and then turned and gave him some of her biscuits.
Lucas says there is no particular story about this little guy. He was just “wearing a hat and looking cute”. From here on out it was all down hill, ha ha. It took us several hours to get back to Salta. And while the scenery was just as lovely on the way back as it was on the way out, we spent most of our time socializing with our neighbors.
Now, on to Uruguay!
Talambaya & Ishigualasta
March 27, 2010
Our next stops on the list are the national parks of Talambaya and Ishigualasta. We had read a lot about them in the guidebooks and were looking forward to checking them out… both from a photographic and natural history perspective. The first thing we noticed was the temperature… it was HOT. We didn’t realize that the parks are really desserts in disguise! We grabbed a quick lunch at the cantina, and then hopped into a van with a few other folks for a guided tour of the Talambaya.
The park is famous for it’s petroglyphs, which are 500+ year old rock carvings that were drawn by the native inhabitants of the region. The petroglyphs show the lifestyle and culture of the people, and were used as markers for trade or migration routes in the area.
The rocks here are massive columns that rise straight up out of the ground, leaving interesting fissures and designs all around. The colors were vibrant red and orange. Occasionally we would spot a condor flying above us.
Panorama showing a slice of the park, and a wider view of the surroundings.
More interesting rock formations that dot the dessert.
Lucas taking some shots of the scenery
The resident population of Talambaya Park, the Guanacos. They look like a mix between a llama and a deer! I bet they are tasty! However, the park ranger told us they are a protected species, and that they are no longer hunted. Bummer… I wouldn’t mind a big Guanaco steak!
We wanted to see more of the park, but our guided tour was only 3 hours. We discovered that you can see the park on foot or bicycle if you plan in advance. In fact, many people take a couple days and camp in the park, but it requires a significant amount of preparation, as there are no services here. No water, food, etc. It would have been fun to know this so we could have purchased all the necessary things in advance to camp here. We considered going into the nearest town to buy supplies, but it would take us nearly half a day to drive to the closest town and back. So, we decided to continue on to Ishigualasto national park.
The drive between the two parks is very dry and dotted with huge cacti. We decided we’d stop along the side of the road and get a little closer to some of them. We found one that looked accessible and made our way to it. They look much better from afar than up close. They are gnarly looking plants, pitted with holes, discolorations, and dead stuff hanging everywhere… generally uninviting! They typically grow about 11mm per year, and these were over 600 years old!
This cactus had some sort of bud growing off it. Maybe it had managed enough energy to spawn offspring?
When we got to Ishiqualasto, we didn’t think we’d arrived in time for the last tour. Fortunately, they have a “night” tour of the park, and it would be leaving in only a few minutes! We signed up and waited for our guide to show up. He told us it would be a driving tour, and we’d ride around the park inside a vehicle. Setting outside the entrance was this massive vehicle, and I was super excited to take a ride in it. It could have driven over our little rental car without a hiccup. I started checking it out and immediately wanted one! It turns out the vehicle wasn’t a park vehicle, but was owned by another couple also visiting the park. They had built the vehicle in Italy, and transported it over sea to South America by cargo vessel, for a 1 year trip overland. They were traveling from the southern tip of Argentina all the way north to Mexico.
They let me take a look inside and around the monster, and it looked really fun! Every part had a backup, or two! Spare axles, leaf springs, wheels, tires, pretty much anything which could break on the trip was doubled up and latched into storage on the carriage of the vehicle. It had a full kitchen, beds, shower, everything you need to survive harsh terrain.
The tour guide ended up riding with us in our vehicle, and we drove through the park with the monster truck following us. We would stop at all the sites in the park, get out, and take a walk around while the guide explained everything to us. This park is known as the “valle de la luna”, or valley of the moon. Much of the surface looks like the moon. Void of life, water, and even color.
There are many interesting geological formations in the park… and this one is called “Canta de Bochas”, or the ball field. These stones have made their way to the surface over thousands of years, forming perfectly round spheres. Evidently, when it does rain (which is very rarely), water rushes through this valley like a torrent, clearing away the loose soil and exposing these boulders. The rushing water erodes the rocks and looser material around them, leaving these for our viewing pleasure.
Along with the spheres, tall spires of rocks called “the mushroom” and “the submarine” have been formed. There are hundreds scattered about, but those two are the most famous. They even make the monster truck look small! Unfortunately, it was getting dark, so the pictures didn’t come out too great! Oh well, I guess we’ll have to make another trip there sometime in the future!
