Trouble on Cerro Catedral

I’m up too early. I’m up before the hostel lobby is open. But the clock finally strikes eight and I have three cups of peach yogurt and head out the door on another showery day in search of a bus to Cerro Catedral. I wait in the chilly breezes for what seems like hours at the bus stop. Several groups of people are picked up and more take their place. I’m about to start walking when I see a sign that tells me for sure that the bus will stop here eventually. It finally does.


I start climbing Cerro Catedral. The rest of the bus scouts for lift tickets. I’m in my windbreaker and I pull on a llama hat. This feels like plenty as I generate heat plodding up the mountain. I jump a stream and lumber straight up the slope of a steep hillside. I reach patches of snow which soon coalesce into a full mantle of grainy slush and ice. I see patches of pure white scattered here and there, fresh snowfall.


I dig my boots into the sloping snow until I pick up a snowcat trail which leads to a lodge halfway up the mountain. I catch up with the snowcat digging a road through the snow which is still layered several feet thick at this altitude.


The wind accelerates as I go higher and it starts to snow. I follow slalom poles to the top. When I get there I’m buffeted by the stiffest wind gust I ever felt in my life. A several story tall cabin, lodge and refugio stands at the top with a long menu of hot food and drinks and a sign, abierto. But its most definitely cerrado. There are picnic tables on the deck if it wasn’t for the howling winds and snow squalls. Snow is piled six feet high on the side of the cabin. Even in this weather I go in search of a back trail down the mountain.


But I never find it. Instead the snow sandblasts my face from the wind that nearly knocks me off my feet. I follow the rocks that jut from the mountain crest and try to keep in constant motion so the cold doesn’t overwhelm me. I reach an impasse, a very steep slope of snow which may be possible to pass, but the consequences of slipping or the snow breaking away look dire. If I break a bone or even twist an ankle, death is a possible outcome.


After scouting the area, I scramble down a rock outcropping towards a lodge a quarter mile away but hundreds of feet lower. I cross a small slope to another outcropping, but it soon becomes clear that the slope is still perilous. The choices are narrowed down to one, I’m turning back. The cold aided by the wind is penetrating by now. I repeat a mantra of reassurance that all will be well and that I can do this. I retrace my footprints and the way back goes by surprisingly quickly. I lope downhill as quickly as I can manage. I’m soon on a muddy, snowless road with a light mix of rain and snow falling on my head. I tell an instructor of some sort how far the snowline begins so he can bring his class there, and then I pass the group themselves noisily negotiating the hill.


I end up back at the bus stop feeding on cookies as I wait. I doze on the bus and nearly miss my stop. I go in the hostel bathroon and peel off my mud stained pants and soaking socks and change into clothing of questionable cleanliness, head out the door to catch my next long bus ride with a half hour to spare.

Chocolate by the Lake

I pack and finish American Psycho. We gather outside. The hostel mates I never knew hand the bags to the top of the jeep and we start the precarious ride down. And I’m staying in Bariloche for at least one more day. The way to Rio Gallegos, the stop before my ultimate destination, Ushuaia, is not just long, but in two legs and not catered the entire way. It doesn’t leave until tomorrow. The clerk hand writes my ticket, not very auspicious.

I sign in at 1004 Hostel and go into Bariloche to find some famous Mamuschka chocolate. I eat over half the delectable box on a bench overlooking Lago Huapi. I read The Jungle Book that night while the rest of the hostel divides into cliques. I feel isolated once again. I can neither read or summon up the gumption to join anyone, so I go to bed.

Mulling over espresso and American Psycho

I wake up on a showery day and a rainbow arches form town to over Cerro Otto. I am up early, way before everyone else. I finally master the Italian espresso maker and decide that I want one of these.

The rain continues, and I feel beat up, so I stick to the indoors today. The showers arrive in blurred waves over the mountains. I read a hostel copy of American Psycho, the most disturbing book I ever read, but hard to put down for the same reason. I turn the pages while watching the day pass. A loud group of Dutch stoke the fire. I read through the afternoon and evening getting up only to change position and then make dinner. I fall seventy pages short of finishing the 400 page novel. I tell the hostel hostess, a Swiss immigrant named Ana, that I want to leave in the morning, but she’s not sure there will be room for me on the jeep, but shortly after she concludes that there is.

Walking a Bike

I get out the door as early as I can muster to walk into town. I pass a group of gauchos on horses gathering in the parking lot wearing traditional garb for a parade I have to skip in favor of adventure. I'm outfitted with an old orange GT mountain bike and a bag, but no map. I find an outdoor shop that sells a good one with icons to indicate mountain biking trails.

I ride towards Cerro Catedral, this time bypassing it to circumnavigate a sizeable lake, Lago Gutierrez. I find a dirt road aside the lake that passes campsites before climbing towards the village of Cerro Catedral once again. I pass wild apple trees and encounter a couple with a child taking a walk. A truck fishtailing wildly passes me, but nothing else does until I enter the village. I eat my lunch and determine the rest of my route, unsure of which road I take next. I spot a group of bedraggled trekkers head up a dirt road and that’s where I go. I find a narrow path of smooth singletrack and follow it. I cross a stream over a precariously angled log with my bike shouldered. The mountain streams by this time become more frequent and are filled with spring melt. The trails are barely maintained and often washed out and I spend much of my time pushing my bike up and down steep banks. I reach a brisk, but somewhat narrow stream with no bridge and I have to get my feet wet. A trekker on the opposite side helps me across the icy flow by grabbing my bike.

From then on, I’m mostly walking. I reach a washed out stream and lug my bike on my back, and tossing my bike on the bank while I climb. After a few kilometers of this, I find the junction, to my relief, leading downhill to, I’m hoping a level and smooth path around the rest of Lago Gutierrez. There are precious few more opportunities to ride. I pass a couple of more mountain bikers, a guy and his frustrated girlfriend and I soon find out why the consternation. At the bottom is a lengthy string of deadfall and overgrown trail, icy stream crossings and a trail that undulates up and over cliffsides. The map lied. This is not mountain bike territory no matter the skill level of the cyclist. I struggle through bamboo stands. I say a little prayer before I balance the bike on my back and cross a narrow log above a turbulent river.

The trail ends at the base of a spectacular waterfall cascading in several stages off a mountain face and I hear the distant shouts of people swimming in a lagoon too far away for me to see. But I’m tired and its getting late and I press on along the edge of the lake. The highway and some cabanas come into view at long last.

I reach a dirt road, but I am disheartened. The lawns look too freshly manicured to be public. I soon spot fences and private property signs and I tense in anticipation of the imagined guard dogs, but they never appear. I’ve reached the grounds of exclusive cabanas which I find no apparent way around. I finally decide to crawl beneath the fence balancing on the narrow strip of rocky beach aside thorn bushes that border the fence. I am forced to wade through frigid streams and to step into the equally cold lake several times. I follow a group of Argentinians ahead of me to a road where the fence finally ends. The road leads to a packed campground and I continue until it leads me to the highway.

I wearily pedal against the wind, even small hills testing my endurance. Ordinarily this highway would be a magnificent ride along a white capped lake and a horseshoe of snowy peaks. I have just over an hour to arrive back in Bariloche, but the missing variable is the distance. I’m not sure where I am. I grab handfuls of wheat crackers and press on, refusing to check my clock again until I reach town. I finally do with fifteen minutes to spare before the bikeshop closes.

The bike shop clerk asks if I’m alright. Where did I go? I show him and he congratulates me. With dirt smeared shorts and abrasions covering my shins and calves, I return, in the dark, up Cerro Otto. A wave of fear comes over me as three dogs seem poised to attack me, and bark in warning. I hold my breath and the dogs let me pass, all bark after all. I soon reach La Morada and a crowd eating dinner at 9:30. After a rejuvenating shower, I cook a big meal and I relax before getting some richly deserved sleep.

Taking my new, shoddy camera to Cerro Catedral

I tromp, gingerly, down steep Cerro Otto, not accosted by any dogs this time. I make the 5km lakeside walk back into Barlioche passing the chalet style cabanas in construction on every spare bit of land. I go into one of the famous chocolate shops. One of the clerks donning a red scarf on her head asks if I need help, but I don’t know where to begin, so I feign miscomprehension, though I briefly stare down some tiramisu and shaved chocolate. The day before, I had discovered a jammed lens on my camera so I take it today to one of the many shops. Repair is futile so, after a few moments, I pick out the cheapest Kodak digicam, which is still no bargain, and half heartedly pack it away feeling the sting of 500 pesos.


Half the day is already past. I eat a brief lunch and trek away from town borrowing my Irish roommate’s map, but not sure of my destination. Before too long, many lakeside cabanas later, I spot a sign for Cerro Catedral and this looks intriguing. I turn down the road leading eleven km further to the ski resort not sure how I’ll get back before dark.


I follow the road and look for a trail and I find a jeep road and try that instead. This leads to a cluster of multi story chalets at the base of the ski resort, Cerro Catedral. I dunk my head underneath a roadside spring to take the edge off the heat. The resort is mostly deserted with several ground attendants working and tourists milling about and riding the ski lift. A lovely, modern gondola station lay
idle for the season.


I find a maintenance road on the ski hill and take the twisting and steep way to the top, my knee barely holding on. I cross remnants of snow fields and a way station below the summit. If I turn back now I will make it back, but the last kilometers will be in the dark. I hobble back down the hill with my gimpy knee and spot a public bus stop in the parking lot. I hobble even faster hoping to get a ride into town. I make it in plenty of time. I am about to board when the driver mumbles "alli" and gestures towards the kiosk packed with people. I board with the rest finding the last seat in the back of the bus.

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.

Salinas Grandes

I’m sick this morning, but drag my butt to the square regardless. I’m way too early so I wait. The market sets up and opens and one of the women selling her wares directs me to buy water. It soon becomes apparent that she is affiliated with my tour. An older couple, a younger one and I pile into the van. Both the couples reside in Buenos Aires. The van climbs over a 4100 meter pass and descends down again, passing a few guanaco grazing in the desert. The old gentleman snaps pictures almost constantly and replies to statements with a drawn out "ehhhh" which is not helping my headache.

The Salinas Grandes appears as a long stretch of brilliant white disturbed only by an isolated group of rectangular pools dug into the flat. Men with shovels and picks chip away at the crystals and pile them next to the pools. A barely perceivable road is etched on the flat, itself formed in interconnected hexagons.

Some tables, a llama, an owl and part of a house is constructed out of salt. Its very impressive but I want to crawl back into the van and sleep. When we get back I return to the hostel and pull up the covers and resolve not to get up until I feel better, and a fitful twenty hours later, I do.

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.

Wind at my back, dust in my eye

I entrain myself in the easy rhythm and way of life in Tilcara. I like how at ease I feel and I’m making quick friends of Melissa. I don’t want to leave. But that feeling also tells me its time to leave. I’ve just about exhausted how much I can grow here, and I want to grow along this journey, as much as I want to bask in carefree feelings.

Melissa settles into a chair in the hostel yard to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez all day. I decide to take a hike above the canyon to see how far I can climb into the distant red striated mountains. I meet few other people on this incredibly clear desert day. I follow a dirt road that climbs gradually and passes above the Garganta of the previous day. The catarata looks diminutive from above. I want to climb down to it but I’m bound by private property. I forge ahead.

I finally find a way into the canyon and I lunch here. A lone, native, hiker rushes past with a jacket covering her head for shade and grunts a reluctant "Hola." I’m wary of any more farm dog encounters and I give wide berth to any farms I see. I climb atop some foothills. Snail shells are scattered on the ground. I cannot see a way up to the summit and regardless it is getting late. I turn back to the valley with a brisk wind at my back.

Soon Melissa emerges and we sit in the kitchen and she opens a pack of coca leaves she bought at the market. We sit down and have a long and satisfying conversation. Tea slips into dinner and we find a restaurant with seven peso estafado. My eye, blasted by windblown dust all day, puffs into an itchy ball. Melissa can’t stand to look at me any longer and rushes through dinner.

An older man with a pot belly and long hair is chatting with the proprietor at the hostel and I excuse myself to extract my contacts. The man offers me some eye drops and I hope the sting means its working. The man is in my room, unfortunately, and releases loud farts and snores guturally throughout the night. I go out in the middle of the night and make a packet of soup I find on top of the freezer, and then some coffee.

Finding La Garganta

I eat breakfast and drop off the laundry, and send the mail and the postman is surprised when I tell him "Estados Unidos." Melissa emerges after 11 hours of sleep. She goes to eat breakfast and to buy provisions for the day and we’re off to search for Garganta once again. And it’s a beautiful, crystal day and I make the correct turn this time after passing the water treatment plant with resident sheep grazing on the grounds. We walk up a trail across a barren hillside strewn with rocks, manure and saguaro cactus, but not much else.

Melissa is not yet acclimated and rests and drinks water frequently. We reach an arrow pointing to the Garganta. We follow a trail steeply descending to a small dam and hydroelectric plant. The water channels into a small cement canal, and after descending a ladder, I follow it into what looks like a tiny railroad tunnel. A small pool of water lay just above the canal and Melissa takes the opportunity to strip into a bikini and wade into the pool and I applaud her for it.

There are no other signs or evidence of a trail so we assume the Garganta is the deep black rock ravine following the dam. Somewhat disappointed we search for some small cataratas upstream to have a picnic next to. Melissa hesitates as she skips the rocks crossing the stream, apparently never gaining a facility for these things growing up in Montreal.

We eat some incredibly succulent roast beef sandwiches. Melissa scouts for a place to nap and I investigate further upstream for bigger and better cataratas, and it doesn’t take long. A spectacular one cascading off a cliff in long beaded threads pounds onto the canyon floor into a very small lagoon. Long grass bows off the rock face on the opposite side where the prevailing wind blows the mist from the falls. On the near side the rock is barren.

I drag Melissa up from her nap and pull her up the rocks. "You’ll curse me along the way," I apologize, "but thank me when we get there." And she does. I reassure Melissa on the way back that I do know the way. A panorama of mountains and canyons lay ahead of us and its all downhill after emerging from the ravine.

In town, Melissa takes me for my first submarino at the café. We sit on tiny chairs on the lone outside table and the poor befuddled waitress snaps our pictures. We drop squares of chocolate into a tall glass of hot milk and the whole concoction is stirred with a long spoon. Specks of soft chocolate float within never quite melting completely. The sun descends over the mountain casting a subtle orange glow over the domes of the chapel which peaks over a shingled roof adjacent to the café.

We rest up for dinner at the hostel. One of my hostel mates shows me how to operate the calefaccion and I feel profoundly indebted to her. I take a wonderfully scalding shower for the first time since Iguazu and I reach a nirvana of sorts.

The hostel mate joins us for dinner that night. She is Melissa’s traveling mate. They chat in Spanish and I am mostly uncomprehending. The gimpy pooch does an elaborate pirouette before curling up in the corner of the restaurant and we all order the lomo and papitas, which are laced with oregano. For me and my $5, the dining experience is dreamy. Melissa, as usual, is very drowsy while the hostel mate and I pick at a side order of papitas. After wrapping herself in a yellow shawl, Melissa leaves. Christina and I briefly argue who will pay more of the bill, each of us insists on it, and then we return to the hostel. I find out that Christina lived for a time in Queens, NY, not far from where I once lived, but Buenos Aires is her home in more ways than one.

Aimless Wandering

I eat breakfast at a small café, El Mate, buy two liters of water and cross the river in search of a way up the beige and green rock so reminiscent of Arizona. After a fruitless search for an established path, I follow a silty wash that descends out of the maw of the mountain. The omnipresent barking of dogs fades away as the wash ascends and narrows. I spot an Argentine flag on one of the summits. Where there is a flag there is a trail, I reason, but my search fails.



I follow a tributary that could lead me to the top. The terrain is loose rock and loose rock cemented tenuously in place by packed mud. As the way steepens I get the idea that the earth and stone will break easily beneath my feet, so I go back, practically sliding on my ass, to the main wash to find a different way.



I find it. After a couple, brief, easy scrambles up shelves of packed mud and stone, there is a relatively gradual ascent to the top and a panoramic view of Tilcara, and on the other side, a large arroyo and red mountains nestled in the larger range. I know where I want to go next.


I follow some abandoned railroad tracks parallel to the Rio Grande to a trestle, full of gaps and unsafe to cross. It traverses a large, silty arroyo which I will take to the red hills. I pass a farm with the odd looking appendage of a Direct TV satellite dish and I brace for the farm dog to give chase, but not this time. I pass the largest, densest grove of saguaro I have ever seen, that grows more sparse as the red hill ascends.





The arroyo I trace soon narrows to a slot and I feel just a bit more claustrophobic as a few clouds gather overhead and some stray drops start falling. I climb as far as I can, but the way becomes loose, steep and way too precarious and I make my way down having risked all I was willing that day. I spot a stone monument atop a small hill which turns out to be the crest of Pukara. I don’t find a shortcut across the river, so I trod on, the wind, by this time, blowing with some force.

In the Tilcara market, I find a beautifully carved box of distressed wood with a llama a mountain scene carved on the lid. I get a map of the town with it, and a free postcard. I plan my next route on the map and save the postcard. I set out for Pukara, not quite knowing what to expect. I soon understand that I’m on my way to the monument I spotted earlier in the day. I pass gated llama at the entrance and one gives me such a puckered look that I fear it will spit at me, so I exit to the ruins.



They are eerily similar, an analog, to the pueblos in Arizona. This could be Tuzigoot in central Arizona. The houses all look about the same except that the church had an altar for unspecified sacrifices. For some reason, I feel hungry and tried to stave off sugar starvation with a $3.50 Pomero Gatorade. Over a dollar for this, and it seems like the price is jacked up for my benefit.



A place called Garganta del Diablo is noted on my map, and though I’m not expecting anything remotely similar to the one in Iguazu here in the desert, my curiosity is piqued. I climb up the road past a water treatment plan and turn a bend and it soon grows apparent that either the map is wrong or the Garganta isn’t what I expected. The road hugs the mountain then loops back into the highly situated barrios of Tilcara.



The clouds are lowering and gusts blow by with increasing force. Some lightning bolts zap far off mountains, so I make my way briskly towards the hostel. When I encounter chaperones of some high school kids I point in the general direction, correcting for my error in navigation, and hope they don’t mind walking in storms on exposed mountain ridges, a condition a little too scary for my lily liver.





A dog runs with purpose towards home and I walk in the same vein. I make it in just as the storm begins and put on a pot of water. I drink coffee and eat a cylinder of cookies I keep for such an occasion.



I take a very cold shower after I fail to work the calefaccion once again, and change into the last of my clean clothes. A girl, Melissa, sticks her head into my room and invites me out to dinner and I marvel how easy it has suddenly has become here in Argentina.



She’s a sexologist, she tells me, as we open a bottle of wine and I take almost instantly to her, but not because of that. We listen to reggae and talk. But she is nearly falling asleep so we leave. She pops back out of the hostel and a few moments later she is dragging me back out. A Bolivian singer is performing at the café in which I saw jazz the night before. Alas, when we arrive the show is done, but a show of sorts has ended up at our table. A drunk native with missing front teeth serenades us trying to convince us he is part of the act. He chats us up, well, mostly Melissa, and we try to tell him "chau." He finally falls asleep at our table.

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.

Lesson One

I awake that night to a ruckus at the door. There are fumbling keys and frantic talking and the hostess comes in and says something in Spanish and Fabian moves his things into my room, further words are exchanged and he moves them back.

In the morning an older woman walks by my door and tells me. "You are not Argentinian."

"No. Estados Unidos." She gives me a sour look and goes back downstairs.

Fabian has already established a rapport with the lady and her friend. I walk down the steps and we all go out for breakfast. Bread, café, two kinds of marmalade, manteca, goat cheese all for half an American dollar. Beatriz tells me, to no great surprise, that she hates Americans. When she sees an American she sees Bush, imperialism, killing, using the world at our disposal with little regard. She asks me if I know about Pinochet and the coup in Chile. Then she asks me if I know about the Argentinian Dirty Wars of the 80s: "The US intervened," she explains to me, and made it worse. I like Beatriz immediately and it doesn’t take long for her to warm up to me as well.

We are looking for a truck to San Isidor. Being who I am, I want to walk, but I keep this to myself. I want to keep the group together. We wait by the plaza as Spanish hippies lay out their jewelery for sale on the plaza, and await the next busload of tourists. The influx is such a trickle that I wonder how they eat, even in Iruya. Beatriz chats with them as they share the mate.

Fabian comes back to say that the next truck will not leave until tomorrow. Beatriz then disappears up the street and comes back with a ride. We breathe in the aire libre as things unfold at a decidely Iruya-like pace. We huddle onto the four chairs set up on the back of the pickup and pull on a woolen blanket. We head up a valley in between red and green shaded mountains past farms, natives on horseback, and Quechans towing pack mules to and from their farms. We splash through the river a dozen times and gradually climb the valley.

Once the stone on the road becomes too loose, we get off and walk the last several hundred meters to San Isidor. Its another small village with a blue steepled church and a mirardor. A cemetery lay high above town on the summit. A pair of goats play in a field and Laura, Beatriz’s companion, hugs one while I take the photo. Our group walks past a Jardin de Ninos and into the village proper to the comedor with llama woven crafts and food. I find a Andean style llama knit hat and pull it on to everyone’s amusement.

Inside a cultural center we meet with a pony tailed Quechan shaman of sorts. He describes the culture and demonstrates some ceremonial instruments that correspond with the seasons. An enormous feathered condor skin, big enough to wrap around a grown man, hangs on the wall. We follow the switchbacks to the mirador and gated cemetery where the dead enjoy a vista over the town where they lived. The stones and crosses are draped in plastic hoops circled with pastel colored plastic flowers. We go back down to the truck with the shaman and pile in.

Its time for coffee again in Iruya, along with pan and queso. The hippies take their spot at a table in an adjacent dining room. We go into town to walk around the open market filled with clothing and work supplies, soccer balls, kettles of food on charcoal, and a papas fritas stand with mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup for condiments. At dinner we order Cordero estafado, a lamb stew, papa and quinoa tortillas and a traditional stew and pass each dish around. We open a bottle of wine. Beatriz gives me a Castelano lesson, "The pouring of the wine." : Deseo un vaso de vino, por favor. Por supuesto! Gracias! De Nada! "Lesson one." Fabian shows me how to twist the bottle after pouring to prevent spilling a drop.

As dark takes hold all of us walk to the mirador to see the town at night. Why does that sign have ice cream written in english, I ask. Fabian tells me that it is a brand name like McDonalds. "This is what I mean!" Beatriz says. So I say, "Cuando construyen un McDonalds en Iruya es el fin del mundo," which earns knowing laughs from my friends.

On top of town in an unlikely posh hotel, so we climb the steps of this apparition. The pristinely appointed lobby, exclusive dining and even the radiators stand in stark contrast to the rest of the town. Finely woven Quechan textiles are displayed under glass and for their price one could have food and accommodation in Iruya for a month. We pose for pictures in the lobby and then return to the dirt, garbage and dung covered cobble. A storm rattles the tin roof of our café. Beatriz whispers to me. She thinks the Quebec man at the next table is a Nazi. She showed him a necklace she received from a Jewish friend and he looked repulsed. I have a bad feeling about him as well and he sets me on edge when he asks me what I’m thinking.

Back at the hospedaje, the women plot out the rest of my route through Argentina. We take turns looking at each other’s photos and get to bed just as the all night pena outside our window stokes up.

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!"

Walking the countryside, running from dogs

I skip the hostel breakfast to see what I can find in town, thinking I’ll save some money. I find little. I slip into an empty restaurant (not the one pictured) and after some confusion with the waiter as to what I could possibly want there, he brings me weak coffee and a few hard squares of pan and some orange marmalade. What this restaurant functions as I can’t tell, but its definitely not to serve food.

I buy a liter and a half of mineral water from the hostel wet bar for 2pesos. I find a donkey trail over the hills of red clay and rock that look every bit of Sedona, save for the saguaros. I soon find my siren call, a cluster of mountains striated red and green . I start a steady ascent across the rock and thorny shrubs. I follow a dirt road and spot a small village in the distance. I sidetrack towards my destination on a narrower road traversing the base of the mountains. From a tiny hut set up in a wash a dog gives chase so I back away and give the hut and a the dog wide berth.

I switch between traveling burro paths and washes until the wash peters out to rivulets, an ominous sign. I reach the terminus of the ascent and I’m staring down into a deep canyon. I parallel the cliff and skirt the perimeter of a small peak until I find a burro trail leading down from a saddle to a road I spotted from above. It leads to a tiny village of farms and a large arroyo draining the mountains I want to reach.

I find another burro trail hoping to bypass the farm and the possibility of more vigilant dogs. I’m stopped by a barbed wire fence enclosing another farm and see the day’s laundry hanging out and I hear a farm dog. I climb straight up the mountain trying to clear myself out of the dog’s range. I see him from my perch, big, black and running down the trail in pursuit of me. I scramble further up a wash and cower behind a hill but the dog holds its ground. But, eventually, the dog is satisfied he has secured the farm and retreats down the trail. I cut back to the trail and make my way back to Humahuaca.

I’m tired and running low on water, and the way back up seems longer than I remembered. The road is fairly deserted until I reach a wider dirt road on which perhaps a dozen trucks and tourist vans pass me in a couple hours. As I near town I encounter Quechan women tending their goats hemmed in by thick walls of briar. I meet my friend, Fabian, on the road back to the hostel. He spent the day in Jujuy to fix a credit card problem. We talk a bit, him practicing English, me Spanish. I decide on my next destination, Iruya, a pueblo even smaller and more isolated than Humahuaca, as much as that strains the imagination. Its an 80 km trip over mountain passes and down a narrow, cliffside, road.

The others return to the hostel from a trip to the Bolivian border. Not much to see there, they inform me. To no avail, I try to stoke up the hostel califacion, so I take a much needed, but freezing, shower and get a good night’s rest.

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.