Traces of human habitation in the area date back more than 10,000 years!
It makes it one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in Argentina.
It is not hard to get high.
The mountains in the area leave me speechless.
And generally speaking, that can be tough to do.
SPOILER ALERT: Mountain photos are best seen on a big screen, so make me happy and if you can, please look at them on a big screen. TYIA.
One of the (many) highlights of the area is the "14 colours of Mount Hornocal."
It takes crazy scary roads to get to the vantage point. Having said that, I would rather drive up than walk up.
When you reach the parking lot you can walk further to a better vantage point. This is the starting altitude in the parking lot. For those of you that are metric challenged, 4,350 metres is 14,271 feet. Either way you look at it, that's high up!
The downhill trail from the parking lot to the vantage point looks harmless.
Sort of. My toes kept ramming into the end of my shoes. Not a good sign.
The walk is worth the effort.
The pictures do not do the scene justice.
They say there are 14 colours to the mountains.
BUT....
You don't have to be an engineer to know that what goes down, must go up.
Altitude is tough. It wasn't a long walk, but, a very steep walk. When we got back to the car in the parking lot we were exhausted. I have to confess, we slept in the car for half and hour before we left.
We then followed another dirt road directing us to a different vantage point. One might consider us crazy to decide to tackle another scary less travelled road with hairpin curves and no guardrails. Of course, there are no pictures to prove it, but that is because I was too scared to stop and get out to take pictures of those crazy places.
Enroute we saw llamas.
And vicuñas.
We met a young local girl walking on this godforsaken road.
We figured we'd pick her up to take her as far as we were going.
Language skills is not one of my strengths. Thank goodness for Google Translate so I could have a short conversation with her. She's 20 years old and studying to be a geography teacher.
She comes home every weekend to to see her parents.
She walks 1.5 hours downhill home,
and 2.5 hours back uphill.
We decided to take her the rest of the way down to her village.
At the end of the ride she asked us how much she owed us. I was speechless. Google Translate was not necessary to let her know she didn't owe us anything.
We drove through her tiny village and found the local school.
I was too shy to ask her for her picture, so this is the best I have to remember her strength, fortitude, courage and humbleness. We wish her well to achieve her dreams, wherever they may lead her.
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