Tucuman was a pumping city, it is the main centre for sugarcane production around these parts and is famous (along with Salta) for being the home of Argentinas best empanadas. Naturally this was a "must do" for us.
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| Ben sampling the local empanadas (stuffed baked pastries) in the town of Familliar, south of Tucuman city. |
We cycled south from Tucuman through plantations of sugarcane, tea and tabacco in hot, humid conditions. So different from the desert further south! It is the rainy season here and there had been a big storm the day before, the consequences of which we were to discover a few days later up in the so-called desert. After a day or so we started heading up into the cloud forest of the Yungas, our first taste of the jungle.
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| Our stealthy jungle camp. The night was spent sweating conspiciously and being terrified of jungle noises. |
The next day we climbed 1500m through the cloud forest on a narrow paved road that followed a river up through a canyon. The views were amazing and we were stoked when the forest started thinning out and we entered the start of the high puna for the first time. The air cooled and we carried on to the mountain town of Tafi de Valle, where we had a well deserved day off wandering around tourist shops and sampling local produce.
The real reason for our day off was that we had to cycle over a mountain pass the next day to enter the Valles Calchaquíes. No big deal in itself but with a name like "Little Hell Pass" we were a little nervous. It turned out to be a gentle climb, so gentle in fact that we talked about the Canterbury earthquake almost all the way to the top, not even dropping into our lowest gear.
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| At the top of "Little Hell Pass", about 3200m. Home to a photo-hungry Alpaca. |
Crossing into the valley was like crossing into a different country - we had to dodge herds of Alpacas on the way down and cardon cactuses (cacti?) sprung up everywhere. It took us ages to get down to the little village at the bottom because we kept stopping for photos, but eventually had to put A into G to avoid a thunderstorm. We stayed in a campground in Amicha, which is famous for its Pachamama festival, which was starting the day after we arrived so we had a great time looking around all the stalls and listening to the music.
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| Ben on the descent towards Amicha de Valle |
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| Getting the smell of jungle out of our stuff at the campsite in Amicha. The dirt groundcover is pretty typical of all campgrounds, great when its dry, not so great in the wet. Argentines dig these little drainage channels around their tents to try and keep the water out. You can see the remains of one under the blue liner. |
From Amicha we carried on accross the valley to the ruins at Quilmes, Argentinas largest pre-columbian ruin. It is also famous for being the name of Argentinas crappy national beer. We encountered our first police roadblock on the way there that actually stopped us, they searched Bens bags while Anna entertained the other 5 officers with stories from our trip. We have no idea what they were looking for.
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| Ben at the Quilmes ruins. The 5kms uphill on a gravel road to get here was enough to remind us how we've vowed to never ride on gravel again. Although you can't tell it had been pouring with rain recently here. |
We carried on that day to the wine region of Cafayate, 70kms away. We could tell we were getting close when vineyards starting lining the roads and we ended up camping right next to one. The town itself was very laid back, full of colonial architecture and artisan stalls. We had a great dinner on the plaza wearing our polar fleece pants pulled up to our knees. We also ate our first goat asado whilst listening to live folk music. It was one of our best nighs in Argentina so far. The next morning we picked up some fresh bread at the market and headed out into the vally again on our way to Salta.
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| Typical road conditions on Ruta 40 just past Quilmes. Crossing the first one was exciting, 25 river crossings later the novelty had worn off. |
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| Anna after getting her feet wet on one of the river crossings. It was quite refreshing. |
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| Stocked up on supplies before leaving Cafayate, the cutest town ever. |
We managed about 10kms before getting a puncture from a catus thorn, but quickly repaired and carried on through the canyon towards Salta. The scenery was amazing, the river had carved a canyon out of red rocks which we rode through for most of the day. We camped beside a railway bridge on the edge of a village that night which Ben found interesting before soldiering on to Salta the next day through more sugarcane and tabacco plantations.
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| Ben fixing a puncture leaving Cafayate |
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| We rode through this canyon all day, the rock formations were spectactular. |
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| It was a hot, but awesome day. We have a million photos of this place. |
