A long, cramped ride

I attempt to find a position I can sleep in and put a good crick in my neck and shoulder from contorting in the seat. The AC is cranked way too high and I brought nothing warmer in my pack than my safari shirt. An old, somewhat befuddled, gentleman boards at some vague juncture midway up the coast and removes a styrofoam cup jammed in the vent, the only thing separating me from hypothermia. I suffer through it cursing the blameless codger and finally stuff my hat inside the hole to quell the flow.


A sublime sunset looms out my window with clouds lit up like embers. Storms rage in the distance, every crack of lightning visible over the fathomless pampa. We catch up with the rain, and a rivulet of water flows through the bus.


The old man leaves, mercifully, in Bahia Blanca, about the time to sleep. In the morning we pass thousands of head of cattle and almost at the point where the estancias end, Buenos Aires begins and it feels like a kind of home. Its warm, but not as stifling as I feared. I check back into Che Lagarto and in my room are naked people in bed and it’s a strange sort of symmetry with my very first night in the city. I stop at a café and eat more pizza and then sit down for a very nice dinner in San Telmo. I return to the hostel and start catching up on sleep.

Norte a BsAs

I ask to quiero pagar and instead the girl at the desk asks my name and wonders why I’m leaving so soon. I like her instantly and has me questioning beyond reason why I AM leaving so soon. There’s nothing more on earth, though, I want to do here. She phones for my bus ticket and I go back to my reading.

I buy food for the ride and finish up some last minute chores. I’ve been eating a great deal which makes sense considering my recent physical stress. I still haven’t fully recovered as I’m reminded every time I climb a modest hill or some steps and feel the burn.

As I walk back towards the hostel, I meet the desk girl on the road. She says goodbye and gives me the customary kiss on the cheek and a nice hug and we chat for a bit and she hugs me even tighter, and by this time I do feel like staying longer, if only momentarily. I arrange my stuff at the hostel and leave and an older Dane in my room does the same.

He went on an Argentina trip 28 years ago, when he said that the country looked much the same except that there was a palpable tension in the air. It was the height of The Dirty War. He met a family with a small child and became close. She found him recently through the internet and urged him to come back and visit. The child is now a mother of her own child. The woman that he met is now the director of the theater in Buenos Aires and has colaborated in creating a play about 1978, Matri, based on generations of women dealing with the crisis.

We are in Rio Gallegos again, back to the refugee camp. It is going on evening and much warmer than my first visit, and I only have to wait a couple hours. I board the bus for my first sustained trip North in a month. The seats in front of me crank way back, but I relax and spread out as much as possible and read the final chapters of Moby Dick. It’s a dull read for me, but it passes the time, and there are thirty hours of traveling remaining. The movie is a bad drama about Flight 98, and seeing it makes me feel slightly ill.

El Calafate

Omar calls me through the bathroom door. My bus is not picking me up at the hostel, as I thought, but three blocks away and I have five minutes to get there. I take off running with two full and heavy packs, but I make it. Customs, this time, is relatively smooth since we are going to Argentina which is not as strict as Chile. El Calafate is a pleasant if not particularly notable town. I walk up the dirt road to a nice hostel and its finally warm again.


The main drag of town is as touristy as advertised but pleasant nevertheless with a boardwalk and chalet like facades. I eat my umpteenth mozzarella pizza and drink yet another Fanta, and find a bus ticket to the Perito Moreno Glacier the following day. I try to find a quiet corner of the hostel to read and relax. My trip back north is scheduled to begin in two days, but with the ticket office closed until Monday, this isn’t written in stone.

The sun appears as I leave

I heat up cup after cup of Milo and soup. I compact my food and throw away, trying to make it an easy hike out this morning. I dry all my things in the sun that finally emerges this morning. In combination with the wind, this doesn’t take long and I feel revived even if my feet feel iredeemably soggy and cold.

The Torres make one last appearance, and it isn’t from the perspective that I had hoped, but I felt blessed all the same. I start down the road towards the Lago Amarga station where I began. I spot large cat prints in the sand and follow with caution.

A wilderness guide from Minnesota who I greeted briefly at Perros is also waiting for the bus at Amarga. Soon a middle aged German with an earring who gave in after a day, joins us. Despite his lack of tenacity this time, he has been trekking and bike touring worldwide. It feels good to be on the bus, though it takes a while for the engine to turn over. We pass untold numbers of rhea and guanaco on the way through the pampa. I return to Omar’s hostel and take a long and lovely shower and go out to eat a full meal and some fruit salad. I drink a beer. I return to the hostel and drink more beer while I watch Return to Neverland with female Finlandian hostelmates and then The Big Lebowski with a group of American and Canadian guys who also completed the circuit that day, starting, untypically, at Lago Pehoe via ferry shuttle.

Overstaying breakfast, Trail Kinks

I wake up at 6. I sit at the breakfast table at 6:30 to find a French couple, who want to speed through the Circuit in five days, diligently shoveling Muesli. Bleary eyed, I pour cereal and reach for the milk and the French girl says politely in Spanish that it is their milk and that’s when I notice "Greg" written on the carton in big letters. Regardless I get the urge to choke them with their Muesli for being so petty. Omar arrives and makes a plain omelet for me. The table gradually fills with other trekkers and as I reach for another tea bag, Omar says something about other people. I assume that he means that the tea is running low so I put it back. He grabs my plates from me and tells me, sorry, he must wash them, others must eat. I shrug and leave the table and he rolls his eyes like I’m an idiot, and he complains, in Spanish, about how long I’ve been at the table.

The bus arrives at 8 and we ride down another dirt road toward the park. We soon approach the jutting towers on the horizon. They are clearly magnificent. We stop at the admission gate to buy our tickets and I realize that I am at my stop. According to a sign in the office, The Circuit is closed, but I decide almost immediately to disregard this. I shoulder my pack and walk down the road with the Torres looming on my left. My pack already is weighing me down and its so cumbersome, I have an ominous feeling about the next week.

For the first few hours I think I am alone on this stretch of trail, but I take a break and another couple passes me. I walk through a cow pasture and around cattle into muddy fields, and this trail is not feeling very wild. After a mere 18 km I’m doubled over with fatigue on a flat, smooth stretch of trail. I pale to think how I will make it up passes and over rough terrain. I eat my lunch at Camp Seron, a small horse ranch, and think about it. I start fiddling with the straps on my backpack trying to get a better fit. I see what I imagine to be an American redneck and his son smoking and taking a break. As they pass me its clear that they’re two young Norwegians finishing up The Circuit in the opposite direction.

The adjustments make a big difference and I get a renewed burst of energy and confidence for the next stretch of trail. And just at the right time, since my first test is ahead of me, a steep hill crosses a very windy saddle. When I cross I see a dramatic bird’s eye view of mountains and Lago Paine. In the mood for celebration, I shout down at the lake. The way down is rolling and I eventually hit woods and water again and I’m getting very tired again. The last 5km to camp drags and I overtake small hill upon small hill expecting Lago Dickson to be visible from the crest. I consider, as the light fades, making an illegal camp on the spot and risking expulsion from the park, but saving my tail. The trail broadens and turns sharply uphill. I have a very good feeling this time, and there it is like a beacon, horses grazing, a group of tents and a refugio cabin, Camp Dickson.

I nearly slide down the loose rock into the valley. When I arrive, the young caretaker asks, "Como estas? Cansado?" Si! I set up camp and quickly boil two packets of ramen before darkness sets in completely.

Early Departure

I spend my last day in Ushuaia in rest. I send out postcards and do a little reading and relax for the challenging Torres Del Paine circuit. When I tell Luca, the Italian, cigarillo smoking proprietor, I’m leaving, he says "finally! I thought you were living here."


The hostel is still noisy when I try to get some early sleep. I’m in for a restless night. The Irish woman on the lower bunk has an early bus into Rio Gallegos. At my request, she nudges me awake at 4:30 AM. I eat my remaining fruit, since it cannot come with me across the border to Chile, and walk down the street already glowing in first morning light.


I board the bus with a large group of mostly Germans and a few French for another 15 hour journey. We ride the ferry once again and file through customs. It soon becomes apparent that we are running too late to make the connecting bus. An Israeli girl with a nose ring walks to the front of the bus to inquire and she comes back with a dubious answer. The head of a German tour group goes to the front to ask more questions. We are dropped off at a police checkpoint outside of Punto Arenas where we will be picked up by the connecting bus.


We stand along the side of the road in the coming dusk and wait. The bus arrives and we are shuttled into a rainy Puerto Natales. I walk to the popular Erratic Rock Hostel and have a bad feeling about my chances for a room, and alas the gregarious balding Oregonian proprietor confirms that they’re full and points me around the block to another hostel. I walk in on some backpackers eating dinner and they tell me to shout "Omar!" The beds are lined with plastic and have no sheets, but it’s a place to lay my head. Omar tells me his home is my home.


I walk to a restaurant where half my bus is by this time eating, as well as one of the bus stewards, an odd, but funny guy who uses mime to communicate. I eat salmon and an avocado salad and pay 4300 pesos for it, which could be $100 for all I know about the Chilean exchange rate (Note: about $8). Nevertheless I pay it and return to the hostel for glorious sleep.

Fifty hours to El Fin del Mundo

I start a fifty hour journey on an old bus sparely supplied with a liter of water and weak, sugary, coffee. The steward hands us each a packet of Maty’s cookies with a psychotic looking clown pictured on the front. I find out that the dull, coastal, oil town of Rivadavia is my layover of eight hours until my next bus to equally bland Rio Gallegos, my second stop on the way to Ushuaia. It’s a blustery Patagonic spring day with snow flurries. To pass the time, I surf the net and go to a café and a pizzeria. The espresso doesn’t even dent my fatigue.


The bus to Rio Gallegos is almost an hour late, and we cross the desolate beauty that is Patagonia. We arrive at an hour late, as well, 5am, but this works out for the better. The next bus to Ushuaia is not until 9am. I rush through the cold and into the bus station with its sheet metal that makes it as inviting as a warehouse, but its gloriously warm and I snooze in fits and starts. Other travelers, as buses arrive, do the same, and the whole place has the feel of an emergency shelter. A whole line of backpackers are splayed out napping atop their bags on the floor.


The boleterias start opening at 8am and I go in search of a ticket to Ushuaia. They’re sold out, at least the company I first try, and I’m sunk, until I find their competition the next booth over. The bus leaves in an hour.


Another eleven hours and no food on this bus as well. We go through Argentine, Chilean, Argentine and then Chilean customs once again. Our bags and passports are scrutinized for the small strip of Chile we happen to be passing through. We reach the ferry on an extremely windy day and the bay is whipped into a frenzy of whitecaps. Once our bus pulls onto the ferry, several people get off to explore the boat. We have to brace ourselves on the deck in order not to fall over and into the drink. I’ve had my fill of storminess and get back into the bus. Out on the water, waves of spray wash over the eight foot sides of the boat and inundate the entire bus.


We are squarely in Argentina and the Andes reemerge in the horizon. Lakes and snow filled craggy peaks pass by the window, and then there is snow on the ground. We descend into the beautiful, if no longer so much frontier town of Ushuaia in the light of 9pm. I check into the Cruz del Sur hostel, shower and eat and sleep with great anticipation.

Bariloche

And we arrive, as advertised, in the Alp-like resort of Bariloche, also a former Nazi hideout. Christmas trees and snow capped peaks abound, but they're not nearly as high as those to the north. Most top out at about 2000 meters, slightly below my home of Flagstaff.

I start my slog form the bus station and as the kilometers pass, I realize the center of town is much further away than I thought when I looked at the LP map. Four kilometers further, balancing two backpacks and my LP, I find my way to the Bariloche Center and up a cargo elevator ten floors to the penthouse hostel, 1004. I want to go to their sister hostel La Morada, isolated on the slopes of Cerro Otto, and I’m only here to wait for a ride. I’m instructed to buy groceries and come back in two hours.

After wandering the town, I lug my groceries up to the tenth floor and wait. I’m piled into the back of a jeep with a bunch of bricks while my new Irish cohort scores the front seat. We switchback up and increasingly steep and rutted jeep road as I wait for the pile of bricks to tumble down and crush me. Instead, my eggs fall on the floor, but I lose only one.

We are here at La Morada and the view is amazing like a Lake Tahoe vista. I eat and take a late afternoon hike up Cerro Otto following a trail that leads straight up following the gondola lines that go to the top. I walk a road for the last short leg and walk past a refugio, a revolving restaurant and a kiosco all closed for the season. I stop at a mirardor and follow the raptor like journey of some paragliders first being uplifted above the summit by updrafts and then slowly swooping into town far below and landing in a soccer field.

I try to find a more gradual trail back down that won’t aggravate my sore and possibly injured knee. I finally find one that starts to descend at a slight slope past a refugio cabin, but quickly turns impossibly steep and I begin to notice a pattern. I’m impeded by a fence blocking the trail and as I try to find a detour I’m met by a woman speaking rapid Spanish which soon transitions into perfect English once she realizes who she’s dealing with. She’s a middle aged missionary, I assume, originally from Poughkeepsie, NY, now living in Bariloche after spending some time in Chile. She leads me down the mountains past innumerable dogs and I thank her and am silently glad she didn’t try to minister to me. I find the cerro trail back up once again and push my diminished legs towards the hostel, dinner and sleep.

Into Caves, Under Bushes

Over dry toast, I talk with an aging German woman who was visiting friends in Brazil. We talk about travel in the Middle East and she tells me that, apart from the kidnappings, it’s a very nice place to travel. I leave to start my day of nothing, stopping off at Norte supermarket and getting food for the day. I nap underneath a bush along the beach and then wander to the pier and back again. Then I head off to the post office, after their long siesta is over, to mail some postcards and meet my Irish friends and we exchange awkward hellos.

I return to my bush, lazing on a warm day after some chilly weather in previous days. A group of teenage girls engage in sand wars screaming and chasing one another. The blonde one instigates, and torments the rest until they finally surround her, take her down and smother her in a barrage of sand.

I walk to the end of the beach to find a place to urinate. The beach tapers to a white, moonscape outcropping of rock in which I find a small sea cave and relief is at hand. The rock is pocked with pores that make perfect footholds and I climb until better sense and cowardice overwhelm me.

Coming back from the cave, to my surprise, I have to wade across the incoming tide. It pounds in at a surprising rate. The cave I was exploring minutes before is quickly filling with gulf water. I climb the rock at a place with a less daunting slope. It is not long until my bus so I walk back along the suddenly narrow beaches. My Irish friends are waiting for the same bus as well. I board and find my assigned seat in the back of the bus and sleep until I’m awoken to eat a cold spinach crepe.

Nemo

I arrive after the longest bus ride of my life, 24 hours, which I spend, mercifully, almost completely on my own. For the last couple of hours a mother and child sit next to me, and the child started screaming. The mother had forewarned me about ruido. Astutely the steward cues up the next DVD, Finding Nemo. "Nemo!" the child squeals. "Que suerte," coos the mother, "Nemo! Que suerte!"

In Puerto Madryn, I find my hostel through some afternoon sprinkles. I go out in search of food. Towards the pier, a rainbow is superimposed against an orange sky. I’m officially in Patagonia and the prices go up accordingly. I can’t find a restaurant meal for under 30 pesos. I find a restaurant specializing in forty varieties of pizza and it is among the tastiest pies I’ve had in my life.

Sweet Idleness

It starts out as a brilliant day. I take a book along and sip a doble at Havannah café, an Argentinian chain, and also a freshly squeezed jugo de naranja with an ice cube. Noone says a word as I linger over an hour at my table on the pedestrian mall under the sycamore trees. I get up finally and mill around town and settle in the park to continue my general laziness and its sweet.

Towards midday I migrate south of town in search of a renowned lomito (an Argentine style steak sandwich) joint. As appetizers I get bowls of peanuts and potato chips and my usual Fanta. The main course is a lomito on a toasted long roll topped by tomato and cheese, a sweet thousand island type dressing and a couple of fried eggs. I find another park in the center of town and lay beside the fountain and continue reading.

At first I’m not sure if the stray drops falling on me are diverted from the fountain by the wind or coming from the sky. But the grey clouds tell me what I need to know. I high tail it to the gelateria down the street. As I cross the street towards the shop a young man holding fliers looks up and smiles at the rain. The customers eating their gelatos stare at the downpour as if it hasn’t rained in years.

In the commotion of securing the outside seating from the rain, the waiter never takes my order, but I get shelter out of the deal, if not another sundae. My bus for Puerto Madryn is leaving in an hour. As I mount my backpack on my shoulders, the downpour renews itself with and even more torrential reincarnation. I wait underneath the pavillion of the Facundo Parilla for the rain to abate. It never does completely, but after weeks in the desert I can use a little watering.

Aconcagua

I do force myself up, somehow, at 5 and I’m out the door walking briskly across the deserted city except for a popcorn stand that for whatever reason remained open throughout the night. I get there early. We pile on the bus, a few tourists, but mostly locals. One of the river guides from my raft trip takes this bus to work.



The barren foothills gradually transition into towering Andean peaks over 4k meters. We pass a small ski resort and then stop at even smaller Puente del Inca with a small Quechan souvenir market with llama wares and a few crystals thrown in.



I walk to the orange creamsicle mineral formation this site is renowned for. There are barriers blocking entrance to the site and with the gaping holes on the boardwalk leading there, it becomes apparent why. I walk back and find a small market selling provisions and purchase fruit juice, bananas, tangerines and a salami and take off for another unknown destination. Another group of travelers stop me and ask if I speak English. When they ask if I know what I’m doing, I shrug.



I meet what turns out to be a group of four Israelis on the road again. They found out about a small lagoon on the way to Aconcagua, so I join them. They’ve been to most of the places I’ve been so far, but stopping at Cachi and Calfayate as well. The tall one hands me a brochure for bikes and wines, an organized bodega tour, but I’ve had my fill of bodegas and bikes for now.


A valley opens up to give a clear view of Aconcagua, caked in an impermeable layer of ice and snow. It’s a month and a half until trekking season which doesn’t seem like enough time to melt much more of the snowpack. Footpaths weave up the valley, so it appears reasonable to follow and assume they lead someplace and they do. We take a break and the Israelis share a roll filled with dulce de leche with me. They urge me to see Puerto Madryn and the whales since the mating season is winding down within a month.



The sign I spot for the ranger station makes it official, we are on the right path. A large St Bernard belonging, aparrently, to noone in particular follows us, comically walking in and out of my path and body checking me. The red headed girl asks me if I ever saw a dog with such a big head before and I shake my head incredulously.





We reach a snowfield and the Israelis start snapping pictures. The tall one tells me there is a single mountain in Israel that gets sufficient snow to support a ski area. The St Bernard, meanwhile, is having a blast. First he eats the snow, then he rolls and writhes on it. He runs full tilt around the snowfield looking as if he was about to plow down one of the Israelis.

At the ranger station, a young female ranger emerges and hands us maps for the kilometer trail around the mountain lagoons. The wind funnels through a gap in the mountains with such intensity that it is hard to walk at times. It picks up bits of gravel and dust that blasts our faces. We reach an Aconcagua lookout and the St Bernard poses with some schoolchildren and then abandons us for a younger crowd.



We explore up the trail further and a German couple directs us to a large snowfield one kilometer more. The tall Israeli hopes this is a good place to take pictures. And they do take picture upon picture, at one point trying to take one of the reflection of Aconcagua in a pair of sunglasses. I feel compelled to head up the mountain further, as far as I can in the time that’s left, but I quell that impulse and practice being satisfied with the moment.



Back down at the ranger station, a new ranger explains why the way to an intermediate peak is closed. Originally, the Israelis were going to trek and camp here, but the season for doing so is almost two weeks from starting. The search and rescue is not fully staffed and only they have access to emergency equipment. The ranger himself has summited Aconcagua many times, the first time when he was 16.



I go out ahead of the group somewhat anxious I won’t make it back in time to purchase a return ticket. But I get to the ticket kiosco, that doubles as a souvenir stand, in plenty of time. I linger on a bench waiting for the bus and watch groups of retirees and schoolchildren in turn walking to the puente and through the souvenir market pawing the crystals and crafts and returning to the tour buses. Clouds gather and the wind picks up again and I put on every piece of clothing I brought that day. The Israelis sit in the snack bar, but I feel a little alienated at this point.

Next Bus

Today is another travel day. I talk to a French traveler embarking on an expedition atop a 20k volcano for the bargain basement price of $60, a promotional offer. I skip the much needed sleep and look for a ticket to my next destination. I can find no more reason to stay in San Juan. Valle de Luna would be a nice excursion, but its so much like the scenery in Arizona, presumably, that I think its better to move on. I easily find a bus to Mendoza leaving later in the morning.

I hoof it to Winca’s hostel from the bus station. I decide almost immediately to get on the river and white water raft. With an expedition company every third store, this is not a problem. I find one for $40. I visit a restaurant that is reviewed as having the best pizza in Mendoza, but I’m not so sure. It goes down like Pizza Hut. Days behind on my sleep, I call it an early night, preparing for an early morning aventura.

Backwater Barreal

And exactly what kind of place Barreal is, I’m not sure. But its all up and becomes increasingly beautiful. The snow covered Andes emerge above the foothills. I am the only Gringo, or tourist for that matter, on the bus. I bring warm clothing with me and contemplate finding a cabana for the night, but decide not to. The Andes come into clear view and everyone on the bus has a specific place to go but I. I’m told I’m in Central Bareal, to my surprise, so I get off and cross the length of town. All the shops are closed for siesta at one pm except for one kiosco. I buy an ice cream and a liter and a half of water and I walk towards the mountains.


I pass farms and cabanas advertising expediciones. Motorbikes and rickety bikes go by along with the usual packs of dogs. I weave past farms with horses, chickens and roosters towards the mountains. I hit a crossroads. Mary is there, enclosed in glass. I follow the road through an impromptu junk yard to an impasse, a rushing river fed by snowmelt. It is frigid, wide, fast flowing and insane if not impossible to cross by foot. I follow upriver hoping to find a bridge or a narrow crossing.


Nothing exists. I leap across several tributaries and wade across a wider crossing nearly rendering my feet numb. I find a place to lay down in the grey sand amongst the rocks and take a short nap. I return in the darkness. My timing is perfect for 9pm dinner. I gnaw on tough lomo topped with cheese and ham and drink a liter of Quilmes dark, to pass the time. At nearly 11, I can dawdle here no longer and I go out in the chill air to take a walk. I’m tired to the point of exhaustion and not sure how I will while away the next four hours. I hit a crossroads and afraid of getting lost, turn back. I take a nap in the park until I’m awakened by a brisk wind and the cold. I huddle behind a wall in the central square and hug in my knees to try to keep warm.



Time passes slowly as I check it on my camera every few minutes. Chilled to the bone, I finally notice 3am pass. Several people gather on the streets waiting for the same bus. Mercifully, my seat is on the back of the bus where I can spread out and sleep for most of my journey back to San Juan.

Give me The Cure

Today is another travel day as I finally leave the Salta and Jujuy provinces for good. But first I layover in Jujuy for 8 hours. I eat a hamburguesa with fried egg and pace the length of town.
I take an overnight bus eighteen hours to San Juan. While there, I walk what seems like a far distance down tiled sidewalks, beneath sycamores, lined by deep gutters carrying meltwater from the Andes. Most are fetid and garbage filled and smell quite rot. I am a sweaty mess as I am in a warm climate for the first time since Iguazu. The beaming, pony tailed proprietor of Zonda Hostel asks if I need a towel for a shower.

I eat some very salty, ham filled, lasagna and turn back towards the hostel hoping I’m not arriving back too late. But I’m far from it. I forget that its Saturday night in Argentina. Music and dancing fill the dining room. Recovering from illness, I’m in no condition for heavy partying, and I watch TV for the night and early morning while the concierge pours me complimentary glasses of wine.

The Cure plays and the Argentine revelers sing, "Tell me how you do that trick.." at the top of their lungs.

Leaving with reluctance

The eye puffiness has subsided a bit and will go back to normal before the day ends. I wait on the patio for Melissa to emerge from sleep. We find a place for coffee and pan caseros, the standard Argentine breakfast. Melissa convinces the café to make the next cup of coffee stronger, since the Tilcara cup is perpetually weak. We are charged a lot for what we get and we leave.

I decide to leave that evening at 6. Purmamarca, my next destination, is not worth spending an extra afternoon in and I weigh that with spending one last afternoon with Melissa. I go to Pukara once again. The pueblo is heavily restored, which disappoints her.

Right as we leave, the tourist buses stream in, but its just about time for me to pack for my bus. Melissa walks to the station and is about to detour to the cyber café since I am a "big boy." I retort, "Only on the outside."

We say goodbye no less than three times. She asks me what would have happened if she hadn’t asked me to dinner that night. I say that I’m sure we would have met anyway since the weird and wacky ones usually find their way to me.

Purmamarca is a retired traveler’s haven. I bumble into a few extensive hostelries that all but slam the door in my face. I finally find the place that’s right for me, a very simple hostel with beds and camping. I return to town to sign up for a ride to Gran Salinas, eat dinner and go to bed.

Goodbyes in Tilcara

When I wake up at 5am, the pena is still going strong. Fabian instructs me, bafflingly, to shut the door after him. I, shrug, get my pack ready and follow. He tells me, no, that the women are traveling with me, and he is headed towards the Bolivian border. So we say our goodbyes and in truth it does feel good to go back to bed.

Laura is ill with a headache and stomach pangs that morning when we go to breakfast. I suspect the altitude is getting to her. We part after breakfast to meet that afternoon for the bus to Tilcara. I take one last walk past the market and hike down the road towards San Isidor. Children play along the path as villagers walk their burros. I bottom out in the canyon and turn back in time to make my bus.

I find Laura laid out on the church steps. I sit on the plaza wall and write. We board the bus and a very white American man taps on the window summoning us outside. The ladies have a SUV ride into Humahuaca, the stopover point to Tilcara, but I was rejected. But the ladies deserve a comfortable ride. Beatriz gives me a hug and leaves in the SUV with plans to meet me in Humahuaca.

When I find them again, Beatriz gives me a hug hello, happy that I made it. As I search the town for an ATM I arrive back to the bus and Laura and Beatriz have managed to carry my overstuffed pack to the bus.We buy our three peso tickets to Tilcara and board the bus within a half hour. As I search the town for an ATM I arrive back to the bus and Laura and Beatriz have managed to carry my overstuffed pack to the bus. We pull into Tilcara and I’m taken aback. The town and countryside is beautiful. Its another adobe filled village with funky cafes and artisan shops. Its surrounded by red buttes and beige mountains. The place we stay is like a villa. There are murals on the walls and the toilet tank is of a bygone era, fitted high on the wall with a chord to activate the flush. The lamp shades are the multiholed skeletons of saguaro cactus.

I walk around town briefly and return in time for dinner. I meet up with Laura and Beatriz for our last meal together. The café is playing modern jazz and has a nice, mellow ambience. A dog with a gimpy front leg hobbles through the digs, and she looks familiar. Beatriz makes sense of it for me. The people who own our hostel run this place as well. We order a quinoa stew, corn stew, and a plate of steak and pureed squash. We share plates, as usual. I eat the most sumptuous steak on the planet, I imagine, and I’m no beefeater. Beatriz talks to me about my timidity and the warmth of Argentine culture and the coolness of mine.

I eat most of Laura’s lomo and squash. She is still feeling ill. I say goodbye as they leave for Jujuy and Buenos Aires in the morning. I listen to a hip jazz trio, part native, part beatnik. I return to my hostel sated.

Arriving in Iruya

I eat my breakfast at La Posada this morning. Fabian sits down with me to pan, marmalade and dulce de leche and asks if he could travel to Iruya with me. He tells me about another town, Purmamarca, and the beautiful salt flats, Gran Salinas, and I’m sold. I add it to my itinerary. A rope is handed down from the top of the bus to Iruya and the bags are pulled to the roof and secured. We get into the bus filled mostly by Quechan elders. The bus climbs a narrow cliffside road that no bus should rightfully be attempting, and the tourists in the bus gasp.

We top the 14k Condor Pass and start weaving around the hairpin switchbacks without a clear sense of where the edge is. We cross the line where a bus ride becomes an adventure. Fabian asks for a translation to the English expression when shit runs down your leg out of fear. "Shit your pants."

Iruya is smaller and sleepier than Humahuaca. It is nestled in a canyon and tilted at a steep angle sloping down to another canyon with a wide river bed with narrow channels. The majority of the bed is filled with rock and silt awaiting to be picked up by the next flood. Touts accost us right off the bus and lead us to their hospedajes going for a $2 a night. The first one we walk into is hospedaje Lili. There are simple accommodations here, plain beds and a tin roof and an outside bathroom with no toilet seat. It overlooks the church belfry and the red and green mountains and this is where we stay.

Fabian finds the tourist office. I go to sit down, but instead of disturbing the dead, stuffed cat from the seats, I stand. The agent sells us a small, one page map for 10 centavos and circles the attractions of the town: the mirardor atop of town, Villa Campo, the neighboring peublo and prime spot to take photos of Iruya, and an even more isolated village 10 km upriver and a thousand feet higher, San Isidor.

We hike to the mirador and then walk down again, and cross the river into Villa Campo and up the steep cobble past the adobe houses. Burros and dogs have the run of the streets. We make it to the top of town and are stopped there by private property signs and the sight of Quechan men leading burros down the mountainside switchbacks. The burros carry a few pieces of dilapidated wood on their back for some undetermined purpose. We hear a loudspeaker from Iruya calling for men to do work.

We return to Iruya and rest before dinner. I see a group of schoolboys doing a bobbing and weaving traditional dance in the middle of the street while their instructor whistles the music. At dinner, the waiter writes down the menu on a napkin and hands it to us. I eat two grilled flank steaks and potatoes and Fabian orders a Quinoa (a traditional grain) Tortilla. With our drinks we pay 13 pesos, all told, $2 each. I shake my head to Fabian, "imposible!"

Mate in Humahuaca

I sit in the bus with Quechan women in bowler hats and colorful sweaters heading for the Andes. The town I arrive in reminds me of small Quechan towns I’ve been to before in Peru. Adobe, cobble, an unlikely internet café , but the landscape is like the high desert in Arizona, if it wasn’t for the hulking saguaros. But for that, this is Quechan territory through and through: textiles, pan pipes, sheep, chicken, goats and dogs everywhere. The restaurants serve little else but meat and potatoes, if and when they decide to serve at all.

When I enter my hostel I waken a napping porteno. He’s excited to practice his English on me. A group of twenty something, educated and well dressed, portenos invite me for mate. Its my first time trying the tea ceremony. The silver cup is filled to the brim with loose yerba tea and the head of the ceremony holds a thermos of hot water. She fills the cup and the person sips through a bombilla, a curved metal straw until the brew is consumed, then the cup is passed back to the person with the thermos.

They chit chat rapidly in Castelano and I understand nothing but a few words. The group slowly files out and its me and two others. We talk about books. She likes John Irving and I think of Garp and try to remember who played him in the movie, but can only remember Mork. Surpringly that rings a bell with her. Its Robin Williams, I recall, my memory of home is as distant as the geography.

I find a nice restaurant, Casa Vieja, to eat llama steak and listen to traditional music and vanquish half a plateful of boiled red potatoes.

Salta, for a day...

As I ascend the stairs of Hostel Terra Oculta at 5am, the young concierge comes down the stairs, "full" he says. I crouch down in the dark on the sidewalk with a Lonely Planet and without a clue. I find a sleepy concierge at Condor Hostel who gives me a brief tour. I crawl into bed at 6. I awaken several hours later with the rest of the dorm and walk out into illuminated Salta. I like it, but I’ve had my fill of plazas, malls and cafes for now and my mind was set on getting out. I immediately decide to go to Humahuaca, a small, Andean village settled by Quechans, descendent of the Incas.


People pedal curious looking chain driven cars down the sidewalk through the park close to the bus station. A tractor train decorated with Daffy Duck and Tom and Jerry graphics pulls cars full of ninos. I wander deeper into the barrio. Shards of glass are glued to the top of walls to deter burglars. A sermon blasts from a loudspeaker that can be heard for blocks. School children jump the wall of a school, and another group play futbol in the street. Close to the evangelizing loudspeaker, witch face graffiti is tagged on a electric pole with a phone number underneath. I eat pizza that night then wander the square. I gather dried fruit and salami, cereal, cookies for whatever the next few days might bring. I want to break free of the turista umbilical chord and simply wander.