We wound our way down the Andes and overnighted at a smallish town called Purmamarka after a dream road. We descended nearly 2000m in 12 km and had 32 switchbacks as well as lots of sweepers to relax around. Surrounded by red sculpted cliffs and marvelling at the engineers who designed this masterpiece I longed for my Ducati at home until I came across yet another corner covered in a fine gravel. It isn’t a race you know. (yeah right).
This was our intro into Argentina.
Next morning an excursion to see more spectacular rock formations and to get to the northern most point of Ruta 40 didn’t spin my wheels so I stayed in bed and read, while the boys went and explored and photographed things of beauty.
On towards Salta and into a lush rain forest that we wound our way through taking three times as long as using the highway, but it was worth the time even though we were bathed in sweat due to the high humidity. Here we saw more colourful butter-fly species than we could count and huge pre-historic looking trees hung with flowers.
Late afternoon on Sunday we drive into the city of 50,000 folk surrounded by forested hills and the bigger Andes in the distance. We seek out a Hotel with Wi-Fi so Gareth, Chris and Tony can settle down for today and run their businesses. Brendan and I explore and walk for a few hours, ride the cable-car to the cooler top of the hill, find an Italian restaurant that looks a good one for dinner and generally watch the locals and try to get a feel for the place. Verdict, lovely parks and squares, pedestrian crossings mean nothing (just a waste of paint), lots of queues in banks and offices, not and easy place if you are a vegetarian but great friendly people
Comments are closed.