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Published: June 23rd 2011
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ok, after an overnight hostel in San Juan ( a place that has some streets ,a cathedral, a tower and a supermarket ) we headed towards San Agustin, being a central point for trips to the parks of Talampaya and Ischigualasto. The hostel booked here advertised itself as being perfect for our needs. The only thing it failed to mention was that it was not exactly clean. It is difficult not t be rude, for the atmosphere and the staff were fantastic. At night we would all sit in the kitchen, drinking wine, beer and fernet, while listening to music and laughing and chatting with each other. That part was excellent. The major downfall was that it was not exactly clean. Squalid and filthy are probably too strong words to use, so I will settle for the fact that there were no insects about due to the state of the place. It was run by two guys, both lovely and attentive, but totally lacking in any care or worry about hygeine of the hostal.
no more will be said of this.
firstly, we arranged a trip to Talampaya. Our driver turned up at the hosatl at 10am, and his
name was either Phillipe or Ricardo - he answered to both. He is without doubt the archetypal Argentinian man. In fact he is the most Argentinian Argentine that we have met. In fact, I was convinced that he was going to regale the four of us ( hooked up with a French couple for trip) that his family were native indians to this area, and that he could trace his ancestry back to Inca times before the Spanish started murdering them. You can then imagine my very slight surprise when he told us that his mum and dad emigrated to Argentina from Spain about 60 years ago, and that he has no Argentine blood in him at all. I can tell a man's heritage a mile off.
anyway, he drove us in a clapped out Renault. Remi , the French guy, told us that this model was withdrawn on orders of the French government as it was unsafe to be driven - this could be why you see so many in Argentina. At one point , while he had his head cranked round talking to us and pointing at mountains behind the car, I ventured to guess that he
was perhaps going at a tad over the maximum speed allowed of 40km per hour. Sadly, I was unable to establish this as the speedometer was not working. Neither was anything else on the dashboard. Personally, I think this was to be his excuse in case the police could go fast enough to catch him ie he didn't know his own speed. In Argentina I think ignorance of the law and a healthy attitude to bribes both work quite well.
To the park. We transferred in to a modern, small minibus and started to bump our way down a dry riverbed. It could have rained for 17 years and the river would still not have flooded. This is the desert. Not even a bar selling beer. A tough day was lying ahead. A day of wonders and beauty, but hard.
the first stop took us on a walk in the hot sun to see petroglyphs. What are they ? you ask. well, to improve your knowledge I shall tell you. They are rock engravings which date back 250,000 years. They have been found on many rocks in the park and continue to baffle experts on to what they
signify. Being more than an expert, I of course worked it out in a few minutes. "don't get back in the car with Phillipe " they were telling us.
above the 500m red cliffs, the condors were getting interested in our group. May have been something to do with the person we had staked out on the ground and smeared in ketchup, but who knows. It was getting hotter. The minibus stopped regularly for us to clamber out to look at the most brilliant rock structures and formations. The cliffs and rocks had been whipped by wind and sand to develop shapes that could not have been developed by a human mind. Everywhere you turned, the brain was assailed with more bizarre shapes and features that would have fitted easily into a Dali painting . Staggering really. A day never to forget or be matched, or so we thought....
next day we were again collected by Phillipe to go to Ischigualasto Park, more directly to the Valle de la Luna - but dear reader, they would not let us in !!! was it due to having a welsh person with us ( which could be understandable) or were
they worried that Phillipe would turn the park into a racetrack ???? nay, nay and ...... it was because we had walked into a sandstorm !!!! what an amazing experience !!! had never been in a sandstorm before, and it was like a storm with sand !! being a man of huge intelligence, I decided to walk into the storm with only a camera for protection to see what it was really like. I returned ten minutes later with a camera that now wouldn't work because some fool got sand in it, and minus a layer of skin that had been stripped off by the whipping sand. what a guy !!
we did return the next day, and as usual, deep blue skies and a scorching sun greeted us. it is called the valley of the moon for a good reason, because it looks just like the surface of the moon. I know because I have looked at the moon through my binoculars. This time there was silence in the car. The whole park was the most alien place that you can visit on earth. Again caused over millions of years by erosion etc... but leaving a landscape that
is breathtaking. It is also called the land of dinosaurs as the oldest skeletons in the world have been found in this park. There is even, and I do not know how this happens, plastic found in the ground. It was completely different from the deep red sandstone of Talampaya, this was a grey, almost monochrome vista.
Hopefully when you look at the photographs it will give you some idea. The only way to understand it though, is to visit yourself.
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peter
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Wow great pics you will run out of adjectives soon, you'll have to use Spanish ones