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No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina

a travel blog by thetourist

Franchute en el sur
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Pisaq Market

Pisaquil, Peru

Today just a short trip with local buses to Pisaq. The "theoretical" market is really for tourists but just aside of it you can still see a smaller one with unknown (at least by me) vegetables. A lot of colors indeed.

Almost art!
On the top of the moutain surrrounding the village, some ruins. The fact is: after having seen the machu pichu, it is like a non spicy indian dish :-)

Pisaq ruins

permalink written by  thetourist on October 30, 2007 from Pisaquil, Peru
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Cusco, Peru



permalink written by  thetourist on October 30, 2007 from Cusco, Peru
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Going north of Argentina

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Argentina

After coming back from Peru last week, I had a break in Buenos Aires, Argentina to prepare the second part of the trip. The goal is to travel first north to reach La Quiaca at the Bolivian border and then follow the road 40 to the south. This road follows basically the Andes. I will use it as main road but will also try to see what is around it. I will also meet some friends in two weeks and do part of the travel with them so that we will deviate (quite a lot) from the road 40 to see majors attraction (more to follow).
So today I left Buenos aires with the idea to reach as fast as possible some nice northern cities. The first 200 km out of Buenos Aires are just terrible to drive, but it is a good training to remember the basic rules of driving here. After having been in India earlier this year, at least argentine respect some rules.
It is all about who gets the priority.
Rule 1: Priority depends on the size of the vehicule. Trucks go first, then buses, 4x4, cars, motorbike. In the city, buses and cabs share 95% of the priorities.
It looks like that outside Buenos Aires, the portenos (habitants of Buenos Aires) feel they always have the priority. This creates some crashes!
Rule 2: Pedestrians have no priority: they are not a vehicule
Rule 3: Animals have priority only (and therefore better considered as humans) if they can damage your vehicule. A cat against a car has no priority. A sheep has! The same sheep may not have it against a truck.
Rule 4: lines on the road are purely informative.
Rule 5: If a truck wants to signalize that you can pass him, he puts the left turning indicator on. Not the right one like in Europe!
Rule 6: If someone flash lights, it is not to say hello or to warn for the police. It is to check that you are awake. So you need to answer!

permalink written by  thetourist on November 9, 2007 from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Argentina
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Going north

San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina

San Miguel de Tucuman is a very nice and dynamic city. It is also the city where the independance of Argentina was declared on the 9th of July 1816. Around the place of independance, a lot of very nice monuments. Here the San Francisco church.

San Francisco church

On the other side, I discover another culinary speciality. It is called panchuque and is, in fact, the sausage of the hot dog inside a kind of waffle. In every street, in S.M.d.Tucuman, they have those machines like we have to do waffle but they are not. Then they add mustard, ketchup or mayo on it. One thing that americans did not invent till now!

Panchuque

permalink written by  thetourist on November 10, 2007 from San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina
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Small hell ...

Cafayate, Argentina


Cardones
Today, I left Tucuman a bit south to go to Cafayate (2nd capital of wine after Mendoza). I took a small interesting road that climbs till 3054 meter to reach the "paso infernillo" literally "small hell" ou "petit enfer". On the Tucuman side it was all green (and rainy) and on the other side like a desert wher I could see some giant candelabre cactus (cardones).
I have other things to tell but I´m not able to upload pictures today so I will update the comments when the pictures will be there.

permalink written by  thetourist on November 11, 2007 from Cafayate, Argentina
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I see red :-)

Purmamarca, Argentina

Today leaving Cafayate to Salta, Jujuy and then the very touristic place Purmamarca. The highlight today was the quebrada de las conchas (also called quebrada de Cafayate).

Red, red and more red

Everything is red and every corner is full of surprise.

Even the bridge is red

permalink written by  thetourist on November 12, 2007 from Purmamarca, Argentina
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Vicunas and lamas

La Quiaca, Argentina

First a picture of Purmamarca because the light was not great when I arrived yesterday,

Purmamarca


Colorfull cemetary
then one from the Tumbaya cemetary that simply a beautifull place on the top of a hill behind the village.
Going then north to the laguna Pozuelos where I plan to camp. On the way could see a lot of lamas and vicunas on the side of the road.

Vicuna

Lamas
Then when I arrived at the park laguna Pozuelos the guardaparque was not there. I asked in the nearby city and i guy told me that it should be ok if I wanted to camp there. My goal was to stay the night so that in teh morning, with good light, I could see some floyds and other birds. The laguna is at 3750m and the night was ... cold. -2 celsius when the Sunrise at 6:45. During the night I had some visit too. Some vicunas. it was funny to see them running when I point the torch in their direction. It was really worth a picture

permalink written by  thetourist on November 13, 2007 from La Quiaca, Argentina
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Higher than the Mont Blanc!

Cachi, Argentina

The reward of the cold night was there. After a 30 min walk I could be very close to the laguna and observe the pink and red floyds.
On my way some vicunas surprised to see someone walking there at that time.
Having reached the northern point of my travel, it was now time to finally follow the road 40 as I wanted to. There is no macadam there so less cars, everything very quiet. (not a good place to break your engine though!) but well, this is all what I wanted. In around 150 kms, I crossed only one car and they were asking me the way because some signs were missing. Well here you are, no signs, then strait ahead. That´s the way!
I reached Salinas Grande where you can literally drive on salt. Everything is white and after that you feel very thirsty.

Salinas Grandes
Then I reached San Antonio de los Cobres famous for the viaduc where the "very" touristic train to the clouds stops at 4300 m. I didn´t like the city so I decided to go on till Cachi. On the way the roads didn´t finish to climb to finally reach 4895m. Even if the Mont blanc grew from 3m since I learned it at school (4810 instead of 4807m), this is much higher and every corner was again worth a picture.

Almost the top


twisty road at 4895m

Update Sunday 18/11:
I encounter extreme difficulties to find a connection where I can upload pictures, so be patient :-)

permalink written by  thetourist on November 14, 2007 from Cachi, Argentina
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From the hospital to the church

Hualfin, Argentina

Another day of surprises! Following the not very large road (sometimes I didn´t want to think if the local bus will appear in front of me in the next curve!), one could clearly see 2 different types of landscape on the right and left. Desertic red on the right and green, rich (because of the river) left side.

The rich and the poor

The story of the day is that I was stopped by a oncoming car asking if I was going to Cafayate. These people met 2 sick german tourists on the side of the road trying to go to the next town with a doctor (hospital). I found them some 20 km after I met this people. They were still there waiting (4 hours waiting they said without having seen anybody going my way. That gives you the amount of stupid people like me travelling here.). Stupid I felt too because now I had to speak german the next 75 km on the way to Cafayate to bring the food poisoned (they say ?!?) tourists back to civilisation. More stupid, they were from Frankfurt (the city I was trying to forget about because of the last 2 years project I was working in). Grrrrr. Hate that.
After that (und tschuss!), I decided to not stay in Cafayate (where I was already on my way north) and stopped before the night arrived in Hualfin.
(IMG62 3)There I found the best house to stay with an old lady (Nona) that was taking care of me like her son. I was the first french here she said. The other reason why I stopped there is because this village, in the middle of nowhere have a very interesting church that was built in 1770. Have a look.

Hualfin`s church


Hualfin `s church inside

permalink written by  thetourist on November 15, 2007 from Hualfin, Argentina
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Nothing wrong can happen!

Villa Union, Argentina

After the yesterday´s story, today I will explain what is the Difunta correa one. It appears that from time to time you can see some small vault (hope I translated it correctly!)(capillas ou chapelle in french) on the side of the road. Difunta correa is the story that happened 150 years ago. A woman with her baby the was lost in the middle of nowhere. She died but the baby survived by drinking her milk. So, on the side of the road, when you see one of those place (that clearly say Difunta correa), you should leave a bottle of water to thank her (or somebody above :-) I don´t know for what you get. People do that also to ask for something. Check here http://www.visitedifuntacorrea.com.ar

Difunta correa

Another one that is protecting your way. At first I read the last line too fast (validad instead of vialidad) which made me translate by "national validity" instead of "on the national territory". I was feeling safe by knowing that an authority was certifying it would not happen anything to me :-) Now I feel sad to know she will protect me only if I´m travelling in Argentina. Spanish readers! Did I get everything right?

According to this, nothing wrong can happen

Today I also learned that bridges have also a nationality

Argentine bridge
and that London can be a nice city

London

permalink written by  thetourist on November 16, 2007 from Villa Union, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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