Yearly archives: 2006

Click here for pictures from Chilecito, Cuestra de Miranda, and Talampaya.
To save you the trouble, I´ll just come out and admit to you that the National Park was a bit of a letdown. However, the journey to and from was worth the money, so it all evened out in the end. A small group of four of us decided to be brave and sign up for a mountain biking excursion in the National Park. The details were very sketchy from the get-go, so we really weren´t sure how much it would cost, how far it would be, or how long and hot it would be. As such, we bought tonnes of food and water just in case. Didn´t need it at all! More on that later. As far as the journey goes, we took Ruta 40, a section known as La Cuestra de Miranda. This is one of the most breath-taking rides in South America I think. Seems I say that a lot, doesn´t it? Well it was. I´m not making it up. I believe it has something like 800 turns, and winds its way quite a distance. I believe the park was something like 154km away, which was to take 2.5 hours. read on…

Click here for pictures from Chilecito, Cuestra de Miranda, and Talampaya.
Hola friends,

Click here for pictures from the road. I´ll close off my day of blogging by writing a little note about the trip from Cafayate to Tucuman, where is the place that I´m writing from right now. It´s a much bigger city (800,000), so less personal. We´re only here for one day, off tomorrow back into the Andes to a place called Chilecito. But for now, I´m an urban dweller once again. I was just in the middle of chatting with some locals about my trip so far. Argentinians are a great people it seems. Last night was a nice group meal at a local restaurant. More wine, more ice cream, more general group fun. The next morning, we were set to take public bus to this town. However, we convinced our guide to book a private bus to take us, giving us the chance to take the more scenic route, as well as to make a few extra stops on the way. One of those stops was to Quilmes, which are the biggest ruins in Argentina I think (and the best beer´s namesake). Sadly, after Peru last year, it´s hard to impress me with ruins. The guide on site was very good, and friendly, but the ruins are very far from their Incan counterparts in terms of scale and quality. Nonetheless, the stop was worth the $5 difference in price for the private bus. We also stopped in a couple small towns…

Click here for pictures from the Quebrada de Cafayate. Let me start off by saying that I´ve never really been to any real canyonlands. I´ve not been to the Grand Canyon, or Moab, Death Valley, etc. etc. So I have no way of knowing whether the magnificance that I experienced in the Quebrada de Cafayate is paralelled or not. However, you can rest assured that this humble narrator was duly impressed, and moved beyond words at several points of our canyon tour via bus with a coca-leaf loving local expert guide. Impressed to the point that I have even contemplated changing my plans for next year. Rather than spending 6 months in New Zealand, I strongly thought about instead returning to South America. For one, it would be much less expensive, not to mention there is no shortage of things to do, and would certainly be an enriching cultural experience. That being said, for now, I´ll stick with the plan. I have a (hopefully) long life ahead of me, and can certainly return another time. On with the tour.

Click here for pictures from Cafayate. Ahh Cafayate. I´ll remember that place for a long time. I may even have to re-visit. It was just that nice! There is no way I can truly do justice to any of the places we are visiting on this trip. To really appreciate it, I recommed that you start booking your own trip very soon. It´s the only way to go. Perhaps the >1000 pictures we´ve taken will help convey the thoughts, but really, it´s pointless to explain. I´m almost at the point of stopping writing for the simple fact that there´s too much to tell. But I digress (btw, did you notice I gave up flash-blogging? that wasn´t fair to you all either, you deserve the benefit of my sometimes long-winded stories). Now back to our tale.