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Published: February 18th 2009
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It´s hard to decide where to begin in telling about our adventures yesterday...
1. With the amazing geography we saw? The winding, dusty, and spectacular mountain road we took?
2. With our.... interesting, tour guide?
3. With the great young Argentinian/Norwegian couple who shared the day with us? They were great fun to talk to and introduced us to mate, the national drink.
We left at 7:30 am for an all day, two couple, guided tour to Cachi (a small mountain town), with a drive through the mountains to the highest point around, and back down to Cachi. We were lucky to have Silvina and Enders with us...Silvina is Argentinian/Italian and works with the UN on industry development, and Enders is from Norway and has been traveling for a year or so. They live in BA.
Our driver/guide was quite low key in the beginning, professional, sticking to the script for the tour, stopping at all the photo opportunities, and answering our questions...He spoke good english and French....asnd it turns out his grandmother was from Liverpool!
The countryside was spectacular and varied from mile to mile. We saw a tarantula, condors, vicunas (in the llama
Heading towards the Andean foothills
There is snow on the highest hills, even in the summer. Bill was amazed that there are rows of street lights on country roads here.. family), wild burros, and lots of smaller birds.
We had lunch in Cachi, and while we walked around afterwards, we heard singing and guitar playing. It was a group of guides (ours included) singing and clapping and laughing together....great voices...I will add a video when I can.
Our guide was more relaxed after lunch, and we talked more about things other than the countryside. I do need to add some more detail here: The guide was about 25, married, three kids (one just born)...He had tats and a piercing...chewed coco leaves with bico (baking soda which brings out the stimulant) (the feeling is like drinking coffee, we´ve been told). He had been playing local folk music on CD for us, but had Daddy Yankee and Fergie in his CD collection. Whe we told him to play what he wanted, he said if he did it would be really intense...Linkin Park!!! He was astounded whe I told him I´d seen Linkin Park in concert...
He started to tell us about the ghost that haunted the place where he and his wife had first lived; a ghost who wanted him for herself and tried to drive he and his
One of the many rivers we crossed
This one is full of mud from the recent flooding futher north. We crossed many streams that ran over the road...some clear and some muddy....some shallow and some quite deep. wife apart. They fought all the time while living there and he saw the ghost a few times....the story had much more detail than I have time for here....they finally moved and things improved immediately between them.
He then told us why he had a picture of the Virgin of Urkupina hanging from his mirror and why he often kissed his fingers and touched it...He believed that she was looking out for him and recently saved from getting killed by a rock that went through his windshield (we could see where it had gouged the sun visor)....
As we got closer to Salta, he put on Linkin Park, rocked out, and became like the 26 year old he was...Gave us big hugs when we parted....we couldn´t have made up a more interesting person....!
We will meet Silvina and Enders for lunch today after visiting the museum where the child sacrifice mummies found in the Andes are kept...Then relax for the afternoon. Tomorrow we will take public transport for a day higher into the mountains...
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