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Isolation and Empanadas in the Desert of Northern Argentina — Page 2
Story and photos by Tim Leffel

Despite the many tours he has led through this stunning area, he still looks at it with wonder and approaches his job with glee. He tells us where to get the best selfie shots and where the best angles are for getting photos in the caves. He moves and talks like a man who has everything he needs and then some. When we encounter a recently deceased cow of his with no obvious cause of death, he just shrugs when we ask what happened and we move on.

In this unforgiving landscape, death is just part of the timeline. Fido says pumas killed 25 of his cows over the past year, which turns out was more than a third of them. Thankfully it has been a good spring for calves. We're not likely to see a puma, though one could easily be watching us as we walk the narrow valley below rock cliffs. "Do you feel like something is watching you?" Gastón asks with a smile.

Fido starts rolling off the names of other creatures to watch out for: black widow spiders, tarantulas, vipers, rattlesnakes, and the small but deadly yarará snakes. "Don't stick your hand in a hole in the rocks anywhere," Fido reminds us.

After lunch (and the stowing of the secret table and chairs that are hidden here for visitors), we reverse course back to the vehicles. Down the ladders and ropes again, we come to our trucks on flat land and mentally prepare for the ride back along the riverbed. As one of my companions mentions that this canyon would be the perfect spot to camp in the moonlight with a round of peyote, Gastón hands out coca leaves to jam in our mouths. We are at a deceptively high altitude, after all, and this should settle the stomach to keep us from heaving our lunch out a window. In what seems like a fitting choice, he pops in David Gilmour's Live at Pompeii album and the cab is filled with the familiar sounds of Pink Floyd songs.

We have lots of time in the four-wheel-drive with no data signal and even back on the regular road the ride is too bumpy for reading. We’ve already shared our whole life stories the past couple days, so we pepper Gastón with questions and then just kick back and let him talk. He’s like the history teacher we seldom had in school, the kind who can put all the pieces together and show you how they fit instead of just reeling off dates in a mind-numbing chronology. He sums up the past 20 years of Argentine history over the course of an hour: the debt pile-ups, the corrupt contracts, the bank failures, and that time in 2001 that the country had 5 presidents in 12 days.

He takes us through the recent years and explains why the political rulers got so rich while the country kept faltering. For most of his life he has known a nation full of unfulfilled potential. For the first time in his adult life, he believes there’s real hope. A lot of the messes are getting cleaned up and the country is coming out of its funk. “Until the next crisis comes, anyway,” he says with a grin.

Through the National Park Los Cardones

The last stretch of our trip gives new meaning to the phrase “high desert.” When we get to the top of the Los Cardones National Park—named after the giant cacti—we’re at nearly 3,500 meters in altitude (11,342 feet). It’s a short bout of photos at the overlook since our jackets aren’t up to the task and the wind is whipping furiously. From here we can see the road winding down the mountain, curving back and forth through several ecosystems until it hits a lush jungle area.

Before we get there though, there’s a wildlife send-off as we come upon a group of vicuñas grazing in a field. It’s a reminder that even in the most inhospitable-looking climates, men and animals have both thrived here for ages. There are, after all, both dinosaur tracks and Inca ruins in these parts. This may not be the picture people have in their head when they hear “Argentina,” but for adventurers and wild landscape lovers, this corner of the country is a dream.

IF YOU GO:

Socompa Adventure Travel runs professional tours with English-speaking guides throughout the Salta Province and beyond, plus the owners run Finca Valentina, a country hotel outside of Salta City that’s a great pre- or post-trip base.

Editor Tim Leffel splits his time between Guanajuato, Mexico and Tampa, Florida. He is the author of five travel books, including A Better Life for Half the Price, and has run the Cheapest Destinations Blog since 2003. He was a guest of Socompa and Salta Tourism on a pre-trip before the Adventure Travel World Summit.

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Related Features:
Disconnected in a Landscape of Sand and Salt - Tim Leffel
Life in the Past Tense: Chile's Atacama Desert - Shelley Seale
Unlocking Argentina's History - Debi Goodwin
Into the Valley of Life - Chris Epting


See other South America travel stories from the archives