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Published: August 28th 2014
While most travelers went from wine-soaked, mellow Mendoza to colonial Cordoba on an overnight bus, it took me a month. But why rush when there were such sweet tidbits along the way--ancient, end-of-the-road mountain towns, rivers to rock-hop, and gorges to explore? Slow travel, indeed.
I'd spent long lazy months in the tourist mecca of Mendoza,
Mendoza--Water, Wine and Yankee Traps, trading English lessons for my dorm bed. However, the day my once tranquil, 8-person dorm was full of loud, drunk, late-night Argentines and noisy, early-leaving Norwegians, I decided to leave.
San Luis
For the first time ever, I caught a taxi to the bus station. Somehow I'd accumulated too much stuff to walk--danger. I boarded the daily bus for the 4.5 hour ride through boring, flat desert and then promising mountains to the provincial capital, San Luis, where I'd planned only to change buses. However, upon arriving, I noticed a cheap hotel across from the bus station and decided to stay to visit a gorge nearby recommended by Argentine friends that wasn't in the guide books.
The next day, sticking to the shadows in the blazing Argentine heat, I covered San Luis in a couple of hours.
It was a pleasant-enough town, but not much worth a stop on its own. The highlight was the Moorish style, 18c convent of Santo Domingo. There were also a few nicely restored Belle Epoch buildings (a relief after seeing so many destroyed ones in Chile from the 2010 earthquake).
The plazas were full of spring-flowering trees--yellow acacias, red bottlebrushes, violet jacarandas and palms, so reminiscent of home, I had a rush of homesickness. The leafy main plaza featured an equestrian statue of native son and revolutionary hero, Colonel Juan Pascual Pringles, after whom the chips may or may not have been named. There, was also the attractive, neoclassic twin towered and cupola topped cathedral which was the site of a multiple baptism with lots of wild children running around when I visited.
Potrero de Los Funes Gorge--Rock-Hopping Heaven
On Sunday, I joined the masses of picnicking families on a funky, local bus into the mountains to the end of the line, Potrero de Los Funes. I immediately headed to the river where families were wading in the shallows and barbequing on the banks. Upstream I went into the gorgeous, increasingly narrow gorge.
There
were no cairns or arrows indicating which side of the river held the path because the town folk wanted outsiders to hire guides, and indeed as I ascended in the heat, I passed several groups with guides descending--not me, I'm an explorer. Whenever a trail dead-ended, I surveyed possibilities, got lost a few times taking forks up side canyons but then built cairns for future solitary hikers. It was massively fun hopping back and forth over rocks in the river, rather like home in Rattlesnake Canyon.
Finally, the promised waterfall at the end of the gorge appeared. For the previous hour, I'd not seen anyone, so I stripped off my clothes and had a cooling dip before heading back to an impossibly packed bus for the hour and Sunday-longer trip to San Luis.
That night, I had my first taste of rain in the central sierras. Thunder shook the little hotel, and I was serenaded by rain pounding the tin roof. The manager was sloshing water out of the hallway, but in my room, I was snug. The next morning, it was dry, and I set out for La Carolina which was mentioned in
my book, but which no one in Mendoza had heard of it. Great to have lots of sources of information!
La Carolina--Relic of the Past
From San Luis, I boarded an ancient bus filled with locals laden with groceries who trickled off over the next 2.5 hours as we followed the Rio Grande River, climbing into the Sierras de San Luis. Spring green grasses and poplars gave way to rocky hills lined with dry-stone fences and ocher bunch grasses, reminding me of the moors of northern Scotland.
At the end of the line was Carolina, a charming hamlet of 250 nestled in the mountains at a refreshingly chilly 1610 m/4830 ft--a relief after sizzling San Luis. The town had prospered from gold mining in the 18c, and so had some beautiful stone buildings. When the gold ran out, it was abandoned to sheep ranchers and never subject to modernization. Only in recent times was it rediscovered and restored for tourism.
I seek out these once prosperous, then abandoned gems, such as Brugges, Belgium, where its river silted up, halting trade and freezing it in the Renaissance, or the towns of northern Spain
along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela that retained their medieval Romanesque architecture from before pilgrimage became passe. I love these relics of the past.
Carolina's main street was paved in flagstones glittering with quartz and lined with tall trees and 18c stone and adobe houses with earthen flowerpots of pansies set out. Dogs, horses, chickens and children wandered freely.
My book listed too-expensive-for-me hotels and restaurants, so I asked around until I found a room for my usual $10 in an unmarked, 18c, thick-walled adobe of a couple of elderly sisters, Leticia and Lena. There was no hot water or kitchen access, so I took quick, nippy showers and ate raw, getting my very basic supplies from the three tiny stores. I thought I'd stay a few days, but life was so peaceful and pleasant, and there were such great walks all around, I stayed two weeks.
I got to know several of the locals who related tales from the rich mining days, and spent days in the parks or by the rivers reading, playing with my photos, watching the wind blowing through the trees and exploring the hills and
rivers. I found places missed by the occasional tour bus day trippers, such as the sweet cemetery covered with wildflowers and, poking out of the ground at all angles, ancient, hand-forged crosses with filigreed hearts.
Hiking Heaven
Accompanying me on daily hikes were my favorite little Mamacita pup, her full-grown son and a changing pack of sweet dogs. We'd walk along the Rio Grande and Amarillo Rivers, yellow from the local minerals where people still panned for gold, and over the many hand-built, wooden bridges with hand-painted signs telling of the local history, flora and fauna.
Sometimes, we'd hike up into the rugged, rocky hills past grazing goats and horses or up Cerro Tomalasta, honeycombed with mines, now dark and puddled with water. Tomalasta was the highest peak at 2,018 meters; I huffed and puffed on the climb and my knees were crying--clearly those sedentary months in Mendoza had taken a toll.
My favorite sunset walk was up to a fabulous, dry-stone labyrinth that spilled down both sides of a ridge; how fun to get lost and found again. The first time I did this, I was wondering how the corgy-like Mamacita would
make it up the steep, stone steps until I looked up and saw her above, waiting for me. That girl could get around!
The town was not without culture and had a library that was open twice weekly where I used the wifi. There were a couple of museums-- the whimsical Mineral Museum with rocks fashioned into anthropomorphic shapes, as well as serious displays of the local mineral wealth, and a modern, sincere Museum of Poetry dedicated to local 19c poet, Juan Cristofer Lafinur.
One day I heard little yips, hopped a fence and was swarmed by a pack of puppies. The owner of the house wasn't living there and had left the thin, long-suffering mother to forage as she could. Thereafter, I visited daily with treats for them and loving for me.
While I could have stayed forever, I realized I wanted to get to Bolivia before the Argentine summer holidays in January. So, one drizzly morning, I traveled back to San Luis for a connection. On the way, we passed one of the more tasteful of the many ugly shrines in Argentina to Defunta Correa.
Difunta Correa (difunta means
deceased)
In the 19c civil wars in Argentina, Deolinda Correa had recently given birth, but followed her husband who'd been conscripted into the army. Lacking food and water, she perished by the side of the road where muleskinners found her dead and the baby alive nursing at her breast, which was seen as a miracle.
Since then, she's been considered a folk saint, and passerbys leave bottles of water (though they mostly seemed empty) in return for celestial favors. Unfortunately, the hundreds of plastic water bottles that surround her shrines look like the unsightly piles of litter you'd see everywhere along the road. But I guess it's the thought that counts.
At 8:30, I caught the daily bus to San Luis and then another 4 hour one to the end-of-the-road mountain resort of Merlo, touted for its dry microclimate. I arrived in the blazing sun and set out for the hostel, pulling my massive suitcase. The map showed it 13 blocks from the terminal, but it was up an incredibly steep hill. Everything was closed for the afternoon siesta, nothing seemed attractive and about halfway up, I gave up.
I returned to the terminal and bought a ticket for a bus that would get me to my next stop, Mina Clavero at 11pm. Hopefully, I'd be able to find the hostel in the dark and it would still be open. Time would tell.
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Mahadev
non-member comment
Light and form.... and style
Hey... I don't know if it's just me (it being 5.30 am here in Turkey) ... but the light in some of your shots is just surreal... what are you using or is this just the way the light is there? One in particular looks like a Van Gogh painting... amazingly beautiful.. thanks. And I love you style Tara.... that's what I'm talkin' bout... just get off the bus... make a decision to stay.... wonder and find the place to sleep.... take a dip in any inviting water you can..... take it slow... GREAT travel.