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The South American Odyssey
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The South American Odyssey

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    Uquia village

    7 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    We reached the village of Uquia at about 2:30 pm. The church at Uquia is notable for its paintings of angels dressed as Spanish soldiers. A little village Uquia with a great collection of paintings of 18th century of Cusco Art School (escuela cusquena) in the village church.Leer más

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    Humahuaca village

    7 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We reached Humahuaca at about 3 pm. The village of Humahuaca is focused on the tourist trade but away from the main square it's possible to wander quiet cobbled streets. We had our lunch at Mikunayoc restaurant where the owner was highly obsessed with Chee Guevara and had posters and pictures of him posted all over the restaurant.Leer más

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    2The winding way up to the viewpoint
    2The winding way up to the viewpoint2The 14 colored mountain21

    Cerro de 14 Colores

    7 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    From Humahuaca, we drove 25 kms straight to Serranias del Hornocal up in the mountains. It was getting very cloudy and the low cumulus clouds looked very threatening. The viewpoint is 4350 mts and when we reached there everything except the 14 colored mountains were covered with clouds. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of it before more clouds moved in and completely covered them. It got extremely cold and windy and after a while, it started to snow. We drove to the 2nd viewpoint and were lucky that by the time we reached there, the clouds separated a bit and we got a view of the 14 color mountains again.Leer más

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    214 colored mountain late in the evening

    Sunset at Cerro de 14 Colores

    7 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    From the main viewpoint, we drove to another viewpoint a km away but a bit lower in altitude. Here, there were no clouds when we reached and we got some amazing pictures of the Cianzo valley and the 14 colored mountains. It was a beautiful panoramic view point. The sunset was amazing and we started back before it got completely dark since the road was bad and we wanted to reach Humahuaca to be back on tarred road before it got too late.
    We drove all the way back to Tilcara and slept at the same fuel pump as we had slept on the previous night.    Leer más

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    22Lunch time

    The accident

    8 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We started early from Tilcara. The plan was to drive all the way South to beyond Salta where there are numerous formations along the road. The first 90 kms was nothing special scenic beauty-wise or anything noteworthy.
    Then at San Guillermo, while we were turning to go South, we took a wrong turn and entered the town. There the GPS recalculated our route and indicated a left turn to get us back on the highway. Hristo followed the instructions and prepared to turn at a road crossing. That's when a motorcycle coming at quite a high speed hit us at the front part of the van. The bike fell down and the driver flew for a meter or so. Luckily nome of is was hurt.
    We didn't have any connection in Argentina so we asked the motorcycle driver to call the police while we took pictures and went through our accident checklist. We took pictures of his id, insurance papers etc Then the police arrived (3 cars and 1 ambulance) and started noting down what had happened and took pictures as well. We couldn't get in touch with the Wickedcampers emergency number so I requested the police to either call the Chilean number or providee wifi so I could make a whatsapp call. They had wifi at the police station so I went with them and made a call. Luckily I was able to get through and we got further guidance that we had done everything right. We just needed the person's phone number and the police report.
    In the meantime, Hristo went with the rest of the police to a different police station to complete the report. The police even managed to call a person who knew English.
    We managed to complete all the procedures by 2:15 pm. We continued our journey after that. We stopped at El Carmen at around 3:15 pm and had our lunch.    Leer más

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    Crossing Salta

    8 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The flora and fauna changed totally after El Carmen. We were down to about 1200 mts above sea level and it was very green and forest like. There were lakes and instead of the llamas and alpacas, we saw cows, sheep amd goats.
    Near Salta, there were many people picnicking at the river. They were swimming, eating, playing loud music. It was a full festive atmosphere there.    Leer más

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    Fuel pump where we stayed
    Fuel pump where we stayed

    La Viña

    8 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We reached La Viña at around 8 pm. There we found a petrol pump with a big parking and restaurant attached. They even had toilet and shower facilities. We decided to stop for the day here. They had wifi at the pump, so we were able to connect with the world again. We had our dinner there and slept early so we could leave early and make up for the lost time.Leer más

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    Quebrada de la Conchas

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We left La Viña early. Our first stop along the route South was at Quebrada de la Conchas at around 9:15 am. It is a narrow gorge with red hills rich in ferrous, surrounding a green valley. Even the river here is red in color. We stopped for a few minutes before moving on.Leer más

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    Garganta del Diablo

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We reached Garganta del Diablo at 10:30 am. This place is about 50 kms from La Viña. It is a very narrow gorge cut into the packed clay sediments. The gorge was made due to the movement of the land initially and the erosion by wind and water formed the gorge as it is seen now. One can walk about 10-15 mts inside before the gorge ends. There were a lot of hippies there selling necklaces and bracelets. We were there for about 10 min before moving on.Leer más

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    El anfiteatro

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Just a few hundred meters from the Garganta del Diablo is os El anfiteatro. This is also a natural formation, much like the Garganta del Diablo, but this one is a bit broader and much more spacious inside. The acoustics are extremely good inside and that is the reason it is called The Amphitheater. Here too, there wete quite many hippies selling beads and necklaces. One of them was playing some music on the guiyar but honestly, the acoustics weren't that good for his music but the sound of the parakeets flying into the format reverberated quiye beautiful all around it.Leer más

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    Toad formation
    Toad formationThe monk formation

    Sapo (toad) and the Monk

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    A bit further along the route, we came across the El Sapo or the toad formation. Its a volcanic rock on tge side of the road and its shaped like a toad. A km or so away, we stopoed at the Monje o fraile Franciscano or the monk formation. It was a bit hard to find this one despite the board there but we did eventually. It was a small red sandstone pillar like formation looking like a monk in his habit. Further along the road, there were more roxk and clay formations.Leer más

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    The Ravine

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We continued further till the ravine. Its a narrow gorge with lot of green bushes with thorns. A nomadic looking family was staying there with their 3 big dogs, all of which looked very underfed and malnutritioned. These started braking and running towards us when we entered the ravine but just as we we getting ready to pick some stones from the ground, the lady called them back. She also advises us about where to go inside. We spent about 10 mins there, before the shrubs and trees became too dense to go further.Leer más

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    El Obelisk
    El ObeliskLas Ventanas

    El Obelisk and Las Ventanas

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The next stop was about 50 mts from the ravine. It was a sandstone formation in the form of an obelisk. It is about 20 mts high and right next to the road.
    A bit further are the Las Ventanas or The Windows. These are window like formations on a rock face. These look like windows opening from a castle. It took some imagination to find these 😁Leer más

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    Los Castillos
    Los CastillosLos Colorados

    Los Castillos and Los Colorados

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The next formation along the route was Los Castillos or The Castle. The rock looks like a castle with ramparts and spires.
    From here on, there were a lot of wineries along the way, all the way up to Cafayate and beyond.
    Los Colorados was a ravine like gorge with a dry riverbed going in. We stopped for a picture here before proceeding to Cafayate.    Leer más

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    Cafayate

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We reached Cafayate at around 1:30 pm. We saw some boards advertising lunch menu for 60 ARS + Postres (dessert). This seemed like a very good price for a meal considering we had been paying upto 90+ for the day's menu till now. We stopped at the La Zona restaurant just opposite the YPF petrol pump at the start of the town.
    This place turned out to be a total fraud. The boards were just to entice the people in the 60 ARS was for a dis with rice and salad. For us that was the main dish not a menu, which normally consists of soup, main dish and a dessert. The dessert too was not included. On the board was a very small print saying optional next to the Postres. The one with the dessert included was for 90 ARS.
    The restaurant didn't have most of the things written in their menu card, not even juices and cold drinks. Hristo ordered the full menu with the dessert and after the food, he was given a spoonful of canned fruits that looked 10 days old, as dessert. 😝😝
    Whatever the situation, the owner always had a smile on his face 🤔
    After the food, we went for a walk to the main square. It was extremely hot and the main square looked that of any other town we had seen in Argentina. We went back to the van, wondering how we will do the trek to the waterfalls in the afternoon, since the plan had been to do the Siete Cascade (7 cascades) waterfall trek in the afternoon, just 6 kms from the town.    Leer más

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    Cascadas del rio colorado

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The Cascadas del rio colorado or the Siete Cascada are a bunch of 7 waterfalls on the Rio Colorado deep in a gorge near Cafayate. I had read mixed reviews about whether to take a guide there or not sonce the path after the 2nd cascade seemed to be quite hard to find without the help of a guie. But, we had the track marked on our Maps.me app so we felt confident enough to do it on our own.
    Luckily, by the time we were reaching the cascades, it started getting quite cloudy and felt a bit more comfortable with the thought of doing the trek now.

    We reached there around 3 pm and were immediately surrounded by a few villagers asking if we needed guides. When we told them we'll do it on our own they demand 20 ARS for parking to keep and eye on the car. We knew it was a free parking but we didn't think it wise to risk our vehicle for 20 ARS so we paid.
    At the entrance was a person, who seemed from the village nearby, sitting under a tree with a box saying donations and a register to note the names and nationalities of the people going in. We entered our names in the register and asked if we could go in, to which he replied we needed to give a mandatory donation of 20 ARS (10 per head). This whole place reeked of a fraud and illegal exploitation of tourists. I didn't like this at all and when the guy was a bit distracted with Hristo's entry in the register, I quickly put in 2 notes of 5 ARS and pretended we've paid fully.
    By now, it was quite cloudy and the villager told us to come back by 5:30 pm since it was going to rain later and they would close. We were very pissed with this since the trek to the last waterfall was supposed to take between 3-4 hrs and we were given just 2 hours. We anyways decided to go in now that we had paid and made up our minds to take our own sweet time. It was an open space so they had nothing they could close at 5:30 pm.    Leer más

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    1st 3-4 cascades

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The path was quite clear till the 1st 3-4 cascades. In fact I wouldn't even call them cascades, they where just water from the stream jumping over some few small rocks. The biggest one was about a meter high. The path though, was quite fun to do. We had to jump over boulders, climb through rock tunnels and cross the stream over stones many times.Leer más

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    5th and 6th Cascades

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    As we went deeper into the canyon, the path became harder to find but we continued following the stream and crossing it when there was no more place to go further on that side of it. The cascades too were much bigger here. At one place, there was no further path to fo. Luckily, a local person was there who showed a path through very narrow fallen stones forming a cave/tunnel.Leer más

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    Into the 2nd valley

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The 7th and the final cascade was in a different valley than the initial one. We had to climb a ridge amd go down the other side into the valley. Here, the path continued in the same vein, across the stream many times and through rocks and caves. It was a fun trek and the cloudy sky helped keeping the temperatures down. In fact there were a few showers during the trek but it felt quite good due to the heat.Leer más

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    7th Cascade

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We reached the final waterfall at about 4:40 pm. This was a much bigger, proper waterfall. It was about 15 mts high amd was along a rock face. We stayed there for about 10 min before returning back. There was no one at the entrance or guarding our vehicle. All the fraud locals had disappeared back to their village but our vehicle had been safe.Leer más

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    The Return Journey Begins

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We were done with the waterfall trek by 5:30 pm. This was to be our last destination towards the South North Argentina. We had to return to San Pedro de Atacama in 1.5 days with about 680 kms. We still had about 3 hours of light left so we decided to start our return journey up North to avoid having to do too many kms on the last day. We had just one more stop left on our return journey, about 200 kms from here, so we decided to start in that direction and try and reach as close as possible to it by the end of the day.
    We had looked up a petrol pump about 50 kms before our final destination and decided to see if we could sleep there for the night.
    The road up North was a national highway RN40, but despite that it was a dirt track. It was extremely beautiful though and soon we started climbing up gradually.    Leer más

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    Amazing Clay formations

    9 de diciembre de 2017, Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We were under the impression that it would be a bleak landscape all the way back with no interesting formations or views but were very wrong. Just 2 hours into the drive, went were in a totally alien landscape. There were while clay formations typical of badlands topography and some had very interesting and beautiful structures. It was getting a bit dark so we couldn't get very good pictures of them but it was a huge surprise since none of the blogs or websites I had read before the trip mentioned anything about them. In fact, we liked these much more than the red clay formations we had seen earlier in the day.Leer más

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