Leaving Chili to head back to Argentina

The crossing between Chili and Argentina is really nice as it goes across the Andes with snow-capped mountains. I arrived in Mendoza but it was quite dead, all shops were closed as it was carnival, only the carnival was not celebrated here☹ But as I was going to meet Claire (a friend that I have already known for more than 10 years) here and her she had troubles with her flight so I just waited here and met some nice people and chilled, we had some music exchanges which was cool.

When Claire and me got reunited we started to plan our travel, and we are like “twee handen op 1 buik” (which means we want to see and do the same things, read eachother minds). This is a first for me to travel long term with someone but so far it’s a very good experience.

We did a very disappointing daytrip but we saw one cool thing which was called the “puenta del inca”, it is a natural bridge to a hotspring but years ago they decided to built a hotel and spa etc around it. After an earthquake destroyed everything and the bridge weakened a lot by the hands of people its now all closed. But still impressive to see as the springs are still there and they contain a lot of sulphur that makes everything turn yellow.

We wanted to go and see some national parks off the beaten track so we ended up in san augustin a small village close to both parks. After we got some info we decided to skip on one as it was very expensive. But we did go to Ischigualasto national park, also called valley of the moon, and that’s exactly how it felt. It is a park were they found lots of dinosaur skeletons and apparently at that time it was a big lake and the dinosaurs got killed because of different earthquakes  that created the mountains and dried up the lake. Was a really cool place and have never seen anything like it.

From there we went to Tafi del valley, a small village in a valley very green after the valley of the moon. We did some hiking there and visited the statues of the Tafi culture from long time ago.

Back on the bus to make our way to Cafayate, which was a very laid back town and we found a nice hostel. We decided to rent mountain bikes and bike 50 km through de Quabrada de Cafayate, which are stunning rock formations in amazing colours. It was beautiful but I was dead at the end. And the last 15 km were hard and my bum hurted.

On the way we stopped to have lunch at this rural house, as soon as we set down the goat and chickens joined us. Than I saw one of the kids carrying around a very young kitten, she clearly had no idea what a kitten needed and was holding it on one leg, picking it up by the head. The kitten was crying as it was obviously hungry. When I tried to talk to her she thought I wanted to take the kitten and kept saying it was hers. It was not until the mother cat appeared and she picked her up that I could get hold of the kitten and put it with the mum to drink, it started drinking straight away. Of course her and her brothers and sisters wanted to take the kitten. But I explained them in my best Spanish that if they would not let the kitten drink it was going to die, that they should not pick it up all the time and let it sleep. By that time I was sitting on the ground with a mum and a kitten in front of me surrounded by 4 very rural, rough kids. The funny thing was that as soon as her brother arrived he wanted to pick up the kitten and both his sisters stopped him and told him the kitten needed to drink otherwise it was going to die.  At one point she looked at me and pretended she was taking out her own breasts and that she was holding a baby and said like my mum and a baby. Ok mission 1 completed. Next mission was to explain that they should not carry the kitten by the head or leg, I referred to her if she would like to be picked up by the head, of course her answer was no.

Finally mum found a quiet place and I managed to put the kitten with her, than I saw a second one and quickly picked it up and put it there. If I would have been with a car I probably would have taken them all, but I wasn’t. So I hope my lesson helped and these 2 little creatures will survive.

The next day we went on a waterfall walk with a guide as we heard it was difficult to find the trail, the canyon was beautiful, the reward at the end was a swim under a waterfall and amazing views. After all this my knee and feet were telling me that it was enough now…

As we were going to Salta, no big hikes were planned. In stead we planned visiting some vegan restaurants, museum, walk around town and find some info on our next part of the trip. Both restaurants were great but one we are still talking about they had a vegan omelette and it was delicious😊 In Salta we also found out that what we wanted to do (visiting Callilegua national park from Tilcara) was not possible as there was a huge mountain range in between, hahahaha….The museum in Salta was great very informative and in this museum they have 3 very well preserved inca children that were found at 6000 meter high in one of the places were the inca’s would scarify children in rituals (although they or the children did not see it as a sacrifice). Its amazing to see a person with the skin and everything on it, wearing its traditional clothing and jewelery

So we decided to go to Calilegua national park first, had our first couch surfing experience and visited the park. It was beautifull, we saw 4 cars with a few other tourists and for the rest we had it all to ourselves. We did different tracks and enjoyed the birds, trees and flowers. When we just came of a trail and were walking on the road, we heard a crash in the trees and we both instantly knew it was capuchin monkeys. We were with the small group for about an hour and after they sussed us out and decided we were ok they came out so we could see them very clear as they were crossing the road above us. It was amazing and managed to get some cool pictures.

After a long busride all the way back down again and then up we arrived in Tilcara, much more touristic but nice… The owner of the hostel we stayed in was very talented with his guitar and other instruments and in the evening he played lots of songs us singing along and to my surprise he suddenly said I know a Dutch song and started playing it. It was Guus Meeuwis with “Het was een nacht die je normaal alleen in films ziet”, so funny and of course he expected me to sing along.

We got a hitch with our 2 roommates and went to visit the 7 colour mountain, beautiful walk around it and we saw some parrots flying over which we saw close up later on in the village. Difficult to describe just see for yourself in the picture section. We missed the bus back so decided to hitchhike, really quick we got a hitch from a camper van with 2 Argentinian backpackers.

In Tilcara itself we visited Pucara an old inka fort, it was nice but they reconstructed almost everything which was a weird sight. With the same ticket we could also enter the museum, and we were impressed, so many things that were found there were so well preserved and you see the detailed drawings on it. They had a very good video explaining the fort and the things they found in there, so we could understand everything a lot better. We liked the little town so we also just spent a day hanging around the hostel, doing washing, arranging some things and making a nice lunch.

The next stop was Humahuaca, in the afternoon we decided to hitchhike to the “hornocal” 14 colour mountain and soon we were picked up by this really lovely couple and their son. We practised Spanish with them and the little boy thought it was very funny when we talked English and kept telling his parents we were talking weird. In the end we spent the whole afternoon with them, enjoying the views of the 14 colour mountain, they were helping me with the altitude by giving me oxygen and something else to help me breathe. Soo nice😊

The next day we took a bus to the middle of nowhere and hiked to the inka Cueva, where we found ancient rock paintings, very different to the ones I saw before. They even drew the Spanish on horses and with weapons I was well impressed by that. Unfortunately other people felled the urge to paint over the ancient paintings, which is very sad. But now the sight is protected by the indigenous people living in the area😊

after these adventures we walked into bolivia...