The wild child stood his ground, on the red dirt of Pumamarca, leaning into the stiff Andean wind, straining his tiny muscles against thin air and fatigue. He gazed out over the unexpected, folded landscape, splashed with an inconceivable array of colours, and was fascinated.It had been a long drive from Salta, through the spectacular landscapes of the Andean Altoplano.
We had boarded the modified tractor trailer just before dawn and had slept through the verdant, flat fields north of the city, waking just as the road climbed into the valley of the Rio Grande.
We opened the hatches and climbed up onto the roof, raising our hands to brush the bottom of the heavy black clouds and casting quick glances over the edge to the deep valleys below.
As we climbed, the green rain forest slipped away and was replaced by arid, rocky slopes studded with Cardon cactus. Archaeologists believe these multi-armed monsters mark the location of Pre-Columbian and Inca settlements (their seeds germinated in latrines!). At 3,500 feet, they too disappeared.We slipped over a spectacular pass, at 4,200 meters, with endless views of the dry, sensuous landscape, and coasted down to the salt plain of Salinas Grandes. Blinding white below the mirrored surface of a few inches of rainwater.
At the end of the day, windblown and sun-basted, we stood with the wild child on the red saddle of Pumamarca, and felt ourselves merge into the fading red light of the sunset
The drive into the "Altiplano", or high plains of the Andes north of Salta, Argentina is spectacular. Here are a few of the roadside vistas along the way.
The highest point on pass is 4,200 meters above sea level (above right).
The drive over the pass is spectacular, but nothing prepares you for the immense salt plain of Salinas Grandes (elev. 3350 metres). It stretches for miles in all directions - to the thin blue outline of the 1,000 meter peaks on the horizon. In normal summer conditions, it would be a hard, flat surface of blinding white, but Northern Argentina has had so much rain that it is a huge lake - 3 inches deep!
The little town of Purmamarca (pop. 510, elev. 2192 m.) sits at the base of the Cerro de los Siete Colores, the hill of the 7 colours. I spent the night here to see both the sunset and the sunrise illuminate woven bands of coloured rock: the black-red of dried blood, rosy pink, burnt orange, deep copper green, obsidian black, and shades in between.
The pre-Columbian settlement of Pucara (near the present-day town of Tilcara, 2461 metres above sea level) guarded the Quebrada de Humahuaca - the broad canyon that stretches north from the city of Salta to the Bolivian border. It was a natural highway for early civilizations, the Incas and the Spanish Conquistadors.
The indigena town of Humahuaca at 2989 metres above sea level
The indigena town of Humahuaca at 2989 metres above sea level
. 
The rains have been unusally heavy, and roads are washed out all over the region, including the main hightways back to Salta and over the mountains to Chile. My itinerary is being modified as I write this... go with the flow!
-30-
An indigenous cemetary at Maimara, with a formation called the Painter's Palette in the background. It's built like a small city, with all of the tomb openings facing the rising sun.
The rains have been unusally heavy, and roads are washed out all over the region, including the main hightways back to Salta and over the mountains to Chile. My itinerary is being modified as I write this... go with the flow!
-30-
