Cacti and the windy city.

Saturday we took a tour of Parque Nacional Los Cardones and the surrounding area. Along the way we learned interesting things about Salta: it was founded by Jewish folks, it's the most Catholic city in Argentina, and it's the highest tobacco producer in the country. Put those three together and see what YOU can make of them. We also passed through some teeny tiny towns ("all you need here is a church, a school and a graveyard and you've got a town," our guide Monica joked).

Passing through four layers of forest in a very short stretch of land (a 2000m ascent in just 20km at one point) took us through amazing scenery.

We also passed the "Enchanted Valley," old Inca land that's now protected for condors. Here, hiking is illegal and park wardens regularly place fertilized eggs in condor nests to ensure the continuation of the species. I wonder what it's like to leave your empty nest in the morning and come home from a long day of soaring and hunting to find an egg...?

probably such an insult to the Incas... oh well

At 65,000 hectares Parque Nacional Los Cardones is the second largest park in Argentina. It was established less than 15 years ago and a handful of farmers still live in the park farming and helping the park wardens protect the land. Hunting is not allowed, so if a puma or condor eats someone's cattle the park is obligated to reimburse the farmer for money lost. The local guanacos are endangered so they've started placing slower and more prevalent donkeys as "bait" for the pumas... Not sure how well that's working out for the endangered species. Not great for the donkeys, obviously.

This park has 22km of the straightest road I have seen since driving through Kansas years ago.

The Incas built it at night using fires to mark the construction and keep it straight. (I don't think Kansas used that technique. But it's a great idea - those Incans thought of everything!)

The park also has miles and miles of cardon cactus.

This cactus is used by wildlife for "housing," and is also used by the locals for construction. Over the next few days I would be more and more impressed with the locals' use of whatever was available to build a town.

We stopped in Cachi for lunch.

Cachi's main plaza

There's not much to Cachi other than a small main plaza, some cafes, a nice church with rafters built from cardon, a crazy Suiss guy who has built a UFO landing strip in town (Cachi is apparently a UFO hotspot) and a LOT of dust and wind.

cactus ceiling rafters

reclaiming water - another thing the U.S. could learn

a very exciting Sunday afternoon in Cachi

On the way back the clouds had dropped and the scenery had changed dramatically. Still totally beautiful though.

the highest point we would reach that day

Monuments are scattered all along the roadside, and we learned about the tradition of the apacheta (which I had heard of in Peru but not in this way): when someone dies, a monument is built in that space and instead of (or sometimes in addition to) flowers people place things that person liked to eat, to help sustain them in their next life. So it wouldn't be surprising to find a bowl of chicken soup in an apacheta... As long as the stray dogs didn't get to it first!

Very early start the next day so we crashed shortly after dinner. Dinner, by the way, involved roast beef pizza... who knew?

... best enjoyed with one of these, of course