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Published: February 24th 2024
There's an old legend, that Jesus once turned water into wine.
Seeing is believing, goes the other old saw.
Road-trip into a small, north-Argentinian town in search of a local version of Rio de Janeiro's famed carnival, fiesta, frolic and fun.
Another bandied hack flickers its tongue: beware of what you ask for.
The trumpets blare, rumpety-pumpety drums beat and beat, others triple and thrum, oboes move air, charangos twang and trill, and violins fill the empty spaces with cumbian drive and rhythm.
And the wine flows. Free wine!
'No such thing as a free lunch?' Maybe.
Free wine! Seeing is believing.
The country's wine-bearing regions run mostly along the eastern base of the Andes Mountains, in areas of ample sunshine and enough snowmelt for good irrigation. From the south, Neuquen (in northern Patagonia), northwards some 2,000km up to Salta, near the Bolivian border, where some grapes flourish at altitudes of 1,500m and more.
Discover altitude matters: local wisdom has it that vines that enjoy more sun by day and cool winds by night deliver wines of flavour more intense than others.
Throw a dart at the northbound map and arrive
in highish-altitude Cafayate, population roughly 18,000, the country's second most important wine region after Mendoza, known for its Torrontes and Tannat grapes, crisp white and 'tanniny' red. The tannin cleans the palate, say some. Others might prefer pickled ginger.
It is a small, square town, surrounded by kilometres of bodegas (wineries). Within each corner of the town is a football-field-sized piece of open land. From each, by day and night, ring out the raucous sounds of music, laughter, yells and fiesta. Egalitarianism in a country village. The crowd that each event draws feeds the coffers of the small stores near each party zone.
It is all low-key, with a high degree of energy and fun. Coloured oils, powder, aerosol foam is tossed, thrown, smeared and sprayed with abandon. Balloons filled with water fly through the air, raining down on unsuspecting victims. Anybody can toss a bucket of water on your head, anybody can spray an entire can of party foam all over you. You can run, or hide, or stand and laugh. There is only one golden rule. You cannot get angry, no matter what form of anointment you might be graced with.
Revenge is allowed, but
only with a smile from both sides.
Alongside this, behind, and driving the emotion and energy, is the music. Southern Bolivian influences, Chilean, north Argentina, one is told, the Latin beats never let up. Bandstands carry arrangement after arrangement, with MCs bestowing praise after praise upon act after act, rejoicing in the brotherhood and closeness of the three neighbouring nations.
The town is filled with music, mostly beginning at noon, and continuing hour after hour until the first cock might crow.
Brief respite, and it begins again. No grand parade big-city style, just hours and hours of hip-swinging and swigging and laughter.
Musicians, mostly men, in all styles of paraphernalia filter through the dancing throngs, around the bases of the stages, gauchos, caballeros, Chilean, Peruvian, dressed in black, with big black sombrero-type hats, with pantaloons, or oversized Basque-style berets, some with knives elegantly tucked beneath cummerbunds into the small of their backs.
Yet, too, there is time for reverence. There is time for Pachamama (Earth Mother), goddess of fertility, of harvest, of mountains and earthquakes. She is present in all forms of nature, and enshrined with sacred rocks or the trunks of the oldest trees.
The elders gather, in traditional garb, armed with flat, shoulder-slung drums, and sing, speak loudly to the sky, wail, and beat the single drum skin with shortened, thick drumsticks, the ends bound with rubber or rag. There is no rush in movement nor beat, only a steady thump ... thump. And a slow, steady, circumambulation around the selected shrine to Earth Mama. Small gifts of food and drink are placed on the ground. Round and round, slowly, slowly, the drums beat, incantations and song and prayers of thanks for the year's bounty fill the air.
Days pass. Sleep patterns are interfered with. Pillows over the head at 3am.
Flashback. February 11, 1990.
In Puno, south of Peru. Days of carnival bands marching past my hotel window. Drums and panpipes specific to the local hills. Band after band, all vying for 'best musicians' in their class for the year. Christmas had been spent halfway down the Amazon River, in the remote village of Tabatinga, soiree-ing with an old friend, Julia Cairns. She had bestowed me (in the magnificently pre-digital era) with the gift of a tiny transistor radio, with which, she insisted, we listen to the Queen's
Christmas day speech.
Near two months later, having watched, listened to, and endured days of Puno's music, finally with the pillow over my head, listening to the BBC, I hear the news that Nelson Mandela has been released. If only he knew what a party South America was throwing for him, was my thought at the time.
Cafayate doyen suggests a short trip to a neighbouring village, Animane, that combines carnival with its annual harvest festival.
A thin, windy passage through 10km of vineyards, and into not much more than a hamlet. Gentle and well shaded with pavements of large, leafy trees. To the central plaza.
Rows and rows of little stalls of artefacts and food, the background beat of carnival music, hundreds of people drifting around, smiling, awaiting the day's events to really kick in, with a line-up of hours of well-known folk musicians in store.
And at the main entrance to the town centre square, on the widest paved path, stands a raised platform 1.5m off the ground, and 4m wide. Decorated with bottles of wine, wine glasses, and three large clay urns, out of which pour a never-ending stream of three different
kinds of wine: white, pink and red.
Free wine! Seeing is believing.
Pachamama delivers.
Walk up, place your cup, mug, glass, flask or empty plastic water bottle under the gush, fill up, and then allow the next person to do the same.
The wine flows out in a steady stream, if not into someone's container then into a clay receptacle below the covered platform, where 'magically' it is rerouted back to the font.
For hours and hours, large 100-litre barrels are surreptitiously replaced 'behind the scenes'.
True thanks by the wine farmers, to the elements, and their workers, for their crop and product.
Onwards north to Salta, three hours from the border with Bolivia, but Argentina's most northern city, and nominally the country's gathering exit and entry point for travellers.
Eclectic transients trade tales of further north, or south. Ecuador, near the end of the periscope, looms lightly. Jailbreaks and rampant, random gang violence have rocked the country over the past two months, forcing government edicts of military action and nightly curfews. Ruminations of ransom kidnappings and bus hold-ups. Slashed bags and slashed pockets are in evidence. Matters to consider
near northern Peru.
Finnish IT expert on a six-month volunteer program in capital Quito lives in a dangerous downtown quarter. "Everybody knows I am not carrying an iPhone when I am going to work, so the gangs leave me alone ... but beware!" she warns.
An odd Rhodesian when-we pops up, constantly attempting to inveigle me in matters of home; the very dismal tales one travels to put aside. "I've lived in Australia, New Zealand, Panama and Columbia," says Glen. "Now I'm looking for another place to live."
In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of north Argentine? What you running from, bud?
Isabella, the sprightly Spaniard who spends her life assuaging the fears of illegal Somali emigrants landing on Greece's southern shores. Antonio, of France, a Microsoft software expert and salesman, recently retrenched along with a few thousand others "to free up billions for AI research". He is trying to get a Canadian passport. One check-box tick "wants to know every country I have visited in the past 20 years". Will Iran nix the game?
Outta Argy, into Bolivia. A backroad bus, scantly used by foreigners, crosses the border at 3am. Only one
immigration office room for officials of both countries. Enter, discuss farewell matters with Mrs Argentina. Move three steps to the right, to the next table, and be welcomed into the next nation by Mr Bolivia. Back into the lean-back seat, and wake up in an entirely different world.
In most of Argentina, there is a sense of downtown, or backlands, Spain. Dress style is mostly Euro-Western. Menus, albeit heavily meat loaded, are similar. As are coffee shops, continental breakfasts, etc.
Bolivia is another planet. Tradition and traditional clothing, especially among the woman, is steep and deep. Long plaited pony tails under little, mostly black, bowler hats. Thickly trussed, ankle length, colourful skirts. Woven cloth around their shoulders, or to carry littl'uns on their backs.
Life is slower, dustier, less formal.
Take the roundabout, backyard route to Uyuni, village gateway to the largest salt flat on earth.
Transport becomes rickety. Mountains beckon, hills and passes slowly navigated, and a tortured decompression whine howls from the engine compartment each time a gear is changed. Up, up, up leaving windy, dusty U-turns in the ever-lengthening valley below. The treacherous track cut into the mountainside is only one-and-a-half vehicles
wide. Only one vehicle from the opposite direction approaches each hour. One needs to reverse to find space to pass.
A serious slip of a back wheel, or a gravel drift on course, and at least a kilometre of vertical tumble awaits.
Past the 2,500m above-sea-level mark, where altitude sickness can begin to intrude. Symptoms can include nausea, headaches, light-headedness, lethargy, breathlessness. Fitness plays no part in who is affected, or not.
Down a kilometre or more, before the next ascent. Stop for relief and beverage. Smoke billows from beneath the rear wheel-well, the brakes are cooking.
Up, up to Uyuni, nearly 4,000m. Halfway to what mountaineers call 'the death zone', where, without oxygen, many will, and have succumbed.
Alight and smile bemusedly. As if someone has spiked my drink. Why do I light-headedly giggle at nothing?
It is not that one is not breathing. And not as if one is gagging for breath. And the body has no graduated oxygen gauge. But something feels not quite the same as yesterday.
The salt flats are the only pressing reason anyone would consider spending time in the little by-water, albeit that it could be
on route to Bolivia's big cities, La Paz and Santa Cruz.
Measuring some 10,000 square kilometres across the altiplano, it is the largest flat land on the planet. Satellite companies use it to grade their altitude measuring equipment.
But it is not the salt that thousands of visitors a year flock to see, rather the extraordinarily unique lack of horizon, coupled with a surreal 'immersive-reflective' visual experience.
Uyuni fulfils the two vital characteristics of all portal towns: a plethora of guest houses, and streets of knock-and-drop tour-guide shops or stalls. The local business cartel seems to have sorted out standard times and fees for excursions to the big salty. Nobody seems to be trying to cut each other's throat in a price war, nor heading off much earlier in the day than others. It is roughly an hour's drive to get from the town to a decent salt flat viewpoint.
Cometh the hour, cometh a wry surprise. This is South American safari country! Fifty or so little guide agencies stretch along both sides of the main road through town, with others around the corners. Each agency has two or three guides per day. Each with their
own 4x4.
For a day trip, everybody leaves at 10.30am, and returns after watching the sunset.
Ten minutes before lift-off, the road is veritable 4x4 cowboy country. One-hundred-and-fifty or so, mostly Land Cruisers, idle and gurgle as they wait for their clients. Fuel tanks, water tanks, chairs strapped on to roof-racks.
First stop, on the way, a railway graveyard. Fifty years and more back, salt and nearby mining formed a core of the country's economy. An extensive rail system was built, the governments of the time considering rail to be part of the future. Mining dissipated, salt lost value, much of the rail service ground to a halt, and somebody dumped them all in Uyuni.
Three, or four, or five hundred eager punters disembark from their metal steeds, and turn the dozens of engine cars and carriages into a mad kindergarten for adults. Selfie central. A wide variety of languages and accents clamber up and on and over the multitude of rusting steel hulks. Selfie sticks, posers, infinity jumpers, groups of friends all find some chattering delight in a one-of-a-kind amusement park.
Hors d'oeuvres are served, on to the main course.
Local rainy season
is November to March. During this time the salt flat is a shallow lake. Outside of this time, it is a crazy-paving landscape of cracked, caked dry salt.
Off the road and on to the flat. In the far north and south horizons, perhaps 30 or 40km away, it is difficult to judge, the peaks of some distant hill, or mountain tops just hint into view. South and north there is nothing. Nothing.
Flat, flat, flat, shimmering off the near-constant 10cm deep water for as far as the eye can see. There is no incline or decline. The water is not flowing up or down even the slightest tilt. It is mirror still. Except for the ripples exuding from the vehicles that are passing through it, driving on a cake-top of salt a metre or more thick.
Each driver has his own route or destination. Out there. Out there.
Nothing in front. Just drive, and drive, and drive. And stop.
And look around, and see nothing, except the reflection of the sky without a horizon. The sky and the water's surface melds into one. There is no beginning, nor end. Close your eyes, spin around
five times, and if you were on you own, and the sun was high, you would be hard pressed to know what direction to escape to.
All customers had been given gumboots to walk around in.
Opt for the shoeless approach. Warm water, the salt gritty to heel. A free pedicure. A strange dryness underfoot. No slip nor sludge at all.
And the games begin. The child emerges from the adults. The train kindergarten had opened the door. Now is a time to fully fantasise. Leaps, and bounds, and poses and props intermingled with dappled cloud that could be above or below. It does not really matter.
Weird, wonderful, naturally unnatural.
Just the kind of place to go chasing imaginary white rabbits down a hole that has no promise of a return.
(more pix below)
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kavya
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