SOUTH SALTA: From Wine flavoured Ice Cream to Rugged Moonscapes

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Agitating over whether to go North, South, or West from Salta, and whether to take a Tour or car hire, we ended up meeting two Belgians to share a 2 day car trip South. Perfecto!
The highlights were too many to recount, and photos do (only a little) more justice:

• dramatic mountainous landscapes, with wildly different colours from the various mineral content
  
• long valleys, with a tentative hold on what water is left either in the narrow rivulets remaining of the river, or under the ground
  
• adobe (mudbrick) houses with their occupants scratching a tenuous living from the rugged and inhospitable terrain
  
• farm animals (llamas, goats, horses, and very few sheep and cattle) happily grazing on ... (?)
  
• climbing Garganta del Diablo (the devils throat) - an unusual erosion formation in the rocky terrain scribed at 45deg
  
• passing signposts indicating the road is now over 4400kms from its origin
  
• playing around over 4000m above sea level, and then collapsing our water bottles by plummeting down a road carved into the mountainside
  

It is a moving experience to see the hard life the more remote local farmers lead. Their adobe (mud brick style) houses are so amazingly a part of the surrounding landscape that provided their materials. As we passed some of Argentinas best wine growing areas, the change in construction was enormous, as external income allowed the laws of nature to be interpreted more liberally. Houses were plonked to make the use of the rugged views - elevated and expansive, with larger windows, rather than nestled into the terrain where the best use of trees and terrain shielded the dwelling from the wild extremes of hot, cold and wind.

We have seen people living a grotty subsistence living in the cities slums and parks. We have now seen people living a subsistence living in the countryside. We can only speculate how much richer the latter are.

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Photos

Typical Village
With typical rubbish services over the bank

Wonderful landscapes
In the lower part of the valley, there is some water keeping the river busy - not a luxury enjoyed further up...

Garganta del Diablo
Devils throat - amazing erosion formation in the rock

The three Amigos
Our Belgian travel companions climbing Diablo's angled rock

Devilish point
The climb to this outcrop was amazing. It looks easy, but it wasn't - at the top the angled rock is wildly disorientating, and you can't stand up steadily without holding something.

Angled rock
The formation of the continent is a story of plates being thrust upwards. It is wonderfully obvious in places like this.

Outside Diablo
Home fires burning

Diablo's neighbour - the Ampitheatro
Narrow, high, and fantastic acoustics of course.

Valley
Nice climb to this vantage point

One for the horse lovers
What these guys are grazing on is any ones guess.

Multicoloured rocks
Loads of minerals pushed up to the surface during land movements giving the amzing colours

The castles
Our view of this from the road was bad - refer the postcard shops for the amazing similarity this has to castle structures