Anathema and the Road To Cafayate

Anathema and The Road to Cafayate
Gracias Virgen de Huachana.. Patron saint of truckers? This was painted on a Bumper of the semi next to us in the morning traffic...

Horrors! Anathema! A guided tour at sunrise and heading into Salta commuter traffic. But it makes sense to finally do a tour. Time is short and because public transport is just 30 pesos less round trip and this way we can be lazy and jostle elbows w argentine retirees and be better turistas and maybe glean a bit of minutia...

Rodrigo our bilingual guide starts with, "today we visit Very funny formations of rock, but they take a bit of imagination - the titanic, the frog, the friaile (friar?)... Today not necessary the coca tea, Cafayate is only 1800 meters." Our tour guide is a 12 year transplant from the center of Bolivia, he moved his fingers together if i asked if he liked it better- meaning the $ is better here. It was a fairly cloudy and hazy morning so I was not confident we would get the bright sunlight needed to really pop the colors in the landscape.

Of the 16 passajeros we are the only two non Spanish speakers, and except for the four 20 something's maureen pointed out to me that are asleep and drooling on each other in the back, we are also the youngest. The back four seats are two girls, from Belgium and Switzerland, and two Portenos. The rest are semi local retirees as we have hit the low season for international tourists.

So far Salta has a much better feel then mendoza. I think I like the saltenos more than the mendocinans as well. More tranquilo. My dreams are more pleasant and vivid here too in our Salta por siempre hostel which has many arabesque flourishes like ablaq (black and white tiles) and a large enclosed but open o the sky lush central garden/patio with numerous plants and cactus, a few arches... Architectural Holdouts from the time of the Moors that the Spanish colonists held on to, and a style re-copied in Ojai my hometown where our arcade (Spanish Revival) on Main Street and pergola and fountains are pretty much exact copies of what are ubiquitous in the facades along the plaza of downtown salta.

Except in Ojai (which began 100 years prior to northern Euro settlers arrival as a spanish land grant to Ferdinand Tico and before that as mission/conquistador controlled ranchos pretty much the same as nearly all of California, the s. western US as well as the rest of Central and S America further enforcing the reality that the flow of conquest and dominant culture came from south to north... it seems it has always been more dominant and perhaps still is, certainly more so than the original 13 colonists moving from vacuum domicillium to adopting manifest destiny and pushing westward- there was plenty of conquesting and genocide still to be had but the Spanish in particular had already established a very enduring hold in many ways...) missing in our plazas are the busts of generals and the numerous 19th century convents that are common in Salta... We share the stucco and redroof tiles, the sweeping languid pepper trees, sycamores, palms, eucalyptus - and the imported wild mustard and Spanish broom as well.

As we walked through Salta we reached the teleferique (gondola) and rode it to the top of the local mountain yesterday and walked down the road passing dozens of runners, walkers, cyclists. Much cleaner city surrounded by high and greener mountains, lots of blooming flowers and much less trash and prices about 20% cheaper for groceries and at restaurants.

"Pachamama is the spirit Of Mother Earth here in the north. Many days of celebration for her and many blooming flowers and trees in the squares. In the summer all the trees are blooming and it is beautiful."

Without a breath pause he suddenly flipped from mother earth celebrations to a "60% of Argentina tobacco is grown in the salta region." Then he droned on about the shipping Of it to buenos aires for cigarette production and quality of the blond and cj and I instantly thought of mr. Garrote from the tango show. Making sense why he spent so much time here. Definitely a healthy population of smokers... Oxy moron? Hmm... Obviously a huge part of the culture and cultural pride, tje second national pastime after futbol because he is still droning on about cigarillos in his soliloquy 10 minutes later.

We pass Alemania, named for the German railroad workers- it is now a hippie commune of artists. It took rodrigo a few seconds to get my deadpan question Asking if we can buy marijuana from them later at the crafts fair we will stop at.  He quickly continued with "the number of kilometers of train travel went from From 55000 to 8400 km since last century." This I can believe, but rodrigo just unloaded a huge load of horse pucky claiming that condors here mate for life and if the female dies first the male flies high and commits sucide. "But the female no commit suicide if male dies. She finds a younger more handsome condor with green eyes and a bigger nest. No, no last part no true but the male does commit suicide which is why it is the national symbol of Argentina."

Apachetas - pile of stones along 23 thousand km of Incan roads. People would walk the roads and leave something for the spirits there, coca leaves, a stone.. For good luck and For pachamama- and since Incan times so you have now some "very pretty piles of many stones."

"The colors tell you how old he mountains are and what they are made of. The classic argentina postcard from the north. The green color in the rocks for example is from copper and ancient seaweed..." . Hmm...

The driver is surprised and asked to make sure we are from estados unidos. "No from Alemania?" For a second I thought he meant the hippie commune a few Kms back but he really meant Germany.

The driver called us over in the amphitheater to show us an arana pollita (little chicken spider) but it was closer to the size of a regular chicken. He poked at it so we could get a better shot but wouldn't let me use the flash. If I understood the Spanish correctly it sounded like the prehistoric arachnid may be endemic to the Salta region.

At the next stop I remarked to Maureen that the Devil´s Throat, a slot canyon we hiked up, resembled more the devils colon and all us tourists were being excreted out.

Rodrigro was filling us with lots of sound bytes of quality info... Apparently the quick thinking Spanish conquistadores and friars brought crosses that they thrust into all the apachetas they found so the natives could begin to share or supplant their religious values with the catholic cross.., inca roads, sacred spots, highest points.... Someone yelled, "Rodrigo! Condor a la derecha!" But he ignored him to point out a school where kids live and study five days a week, Monday through Friday.

Cardon cactus, sandstone, limestones, conglomerates upthrust and twisted. Llamas tied up for photos at many pullouts and the hippies and locals selling jewelry, ocarinas, ceramic bowls... (When we stopped for a pee break in tiny san roque an Argentine man yelled and clapped his hands for his wife who was inside the tiendita and she came running out bringing pesos for a very lackluster ceramic salsa bowl.) Lots of ruins from colonial times and one looked Incan. Volcanic rock swirled in to the colorful landscape.

The longest argentine river flows through here an gets five or so name changes on its way to the sea. At the next stop we saw the green trunked and branched brea tree contrasting against the red rock. Apparently the hippies in Alemania are always drinking tea made from the leaves for visions. The stocky, very hairy save his shaved head dude took the opportunity to eat some leaves. "No hay problemA!" He said as he grinned at us as he got back in the van.

Somehow I keep thinking of Cheech on the Los Angeles city tour in the timeless classic Born in East LA. "You might be saying to yourself that this landscapes looks on awful lot like Mexico. That is because it once was." Cheech eventually goes crosseyed trying to figure out what the tour guide is saying...

All the tours, and there are many, stop at one giant craft store. They greet you with sweet wine and date samples. Rodrigo made it clear that if we planned to buy souvenirs "this will be a very good place." Maureen and I thought the grinning and over enthused owner had to he the brother of the mayor or the cousin if the minister of tourismo. He blew on an ocarina. "Music!"

For lunch in cafayate we escaped the group as they were suckered in to a set $50 peso meal of little goat stew (cabrillto) and walked around he square on our own to a cafe for pizza and empanadas. I tried to order mate and he tried to ignore me. I asked again and he said in Spanish that I had to go by the mate gourd and bombilla at  the tourist shop next door and he would serve it to me. I though he was kidding but he didn't return with it. I asked again and he made it clear no mate would be served before 5 pm even though it was on the menu. I would be breaking a holy law if the served me. It just is not done. It would have helped my coffee addiction if they would only serve it early in the AM and at 5.

Next it was a tour and tasting at the oldest bodega in Cafayate, Visaja Secreto. I had to excuse my self from the museum/tour as the overwhelmingly heavy smell of ancient wood and spoiled wine with chlorine challenged my grease soaked stomach.

Now we will go and spend 20 minutes to take pictures at the road side where they will no doubt try to charge us to pet and fondle tame llamas... There was quite a build up to this as it was pointed out when we passed in the morning that we would be sure to stop on the way back and this was our second reminder that we were nearly there...

One llama spit at me when I ran out of kernels and still tried to pet it. They were tied to the lacy skeletons if cardon cactus. They ate hard corn kernels that we fed them. Crazy teeth! We never got any purell to clean our hands and I can still feel llama slime on mine. Our guide is horribly congested and sneezing nearly non stop now. Maybe he is allergic to llamas?

The head shaved gorilla is drinking his 5 o'clock mate and sharing it with the driver. The rest alternately gab on cell phones or doze as we drift our way passing a million blurred and blooming roadside daisys and quite a few blood red blowing flags staked to the dirt and tied to tree branches, stacked water bottles and tiny roadside shrines giving homage to Pachamama in the fertile Lerma Valley.