Salta Part I: The Road To Payogasta
Many travel sites and bloggers highly recommend visiting the Salta Province and our reroute made a week in the area possible. Located in the high desert of northwest Argentina, we expected the landscape and climate to be gorgeous, but similar to places we had been in the southwestern United States.
Upon arrival in the city of Salta, we collected our rental car, whom we lovingly named Joy2, and hit the road for our three hour drive west to Payogasta, a small village outside of the little, but more well-known and traveled town of Cachi. The city of Salta is in the lowlands of the province and as we got further from the city we began to notice soft outlines of mountains appearing on the horizon.
We passed through suburbs and stopped for fast food at a roadside restaurant. On the menu were various types of empanadas, tamales, and humitas – a pre-colonial dish that is common in this area of South America and only visually similar to the tamale. The kids enjoyed their Fanta and we ordered a smattering of food. The empanadas were cooked in a charcoal oven at the curbside. Jamon y queso, shredded chicken, corn with cheese, and even beef tongue empanadas came to our table. We chowed down and ordered seconds before getting back on the road.
As we left town and turned onto the road to Payogasta, the mountains we could see in the distance began to creep closer. We passed through a checkpoint that seemed to have the sole purpose of making sure our vehicle was capable of traversing the road through the mountains. The drive quickly took us from corn and cassava fields into jungle forest, then before we knew it, we were driving next to steep cliffs where any small bit of roadside grass was used for grazing livestock. Before the road started to get steep, we impulsively pulled over to a woman selling bags of fruit. She had duraznos (peaches) a little larger than the size of a golfball; $2 for an entire shopping bag full of them. We gave them a try and found them to be the deepest orange color and sweetest peaches we had ever eaten.
The driving adventure up the mountains intensified with the switch to gravel roads, deeper switchbacks, and freshly fallen rocks that had not yet been pushed to the side of the road. Suddenly, we started seeing cacti dotting desert mountains. Before we had gotten over the cacti, the mountains had grown to stretch into the clouds and soon we were seeing cattle and goats grazing high on grass-covered slopes.
As we continued to drive up the mountain, the edge of the road crept closer to the steep embankments and things were a little nerve-wracking but also exciting. We turned on Jon’s altimeter and watched the numbers climb hundreds of feet at a time until we soon found ourselves in the clouds at over 10,000 ft of elevation.
Over the edge of the road, we could no longer see the bottom of the valley as we were completely in the clouds. The kids were amazed and reached out the windows to touch and taste the clouds. The experience was not at all what they had imagined a cloud would taste and feel like; just cold, moist air.
As we came out of the high mountains, we coasted down through Las Cardones National Park. Cerro (Mount) Tin Tin was in the shadow of sunset, but we could make out uplifted red and white layers of rock that formed the mountain. The highway was once again paved and straight as the eye could see. Our destination, Payagosta, was just beyond the next bluff.
Payogasta is made up of small clay block homes with unpaved roads full of potholes. It looked like our accommodations were going to be very rustic. We tried our cell phones to contact our AirBnB host, but no signal. We found a police station around the corner from where our stay. They were startled when we walked in, but more than happy to help us reach our host. Our rental house was spacious and comfortable and bordered a huge pasture. Our view was of the Nevado de Cachi mountains and we were gifted a brilliant sunset beyond its peaks as we got settled in.
Payogasta is a very small and friendly town. The store owners seemed surprised to have outsiders enter their shops, but grateful to have us and more than willing to work with our broken Spanish. From the limited groceries available in the small village, we cobbled together some chicken leg quarters and local sweet corn. Our AirBnB had a massive indoor grill we were excited to fire up. Unfortunately, getting a fire going was a massive battle, perhaps from bad charcoal, and we finally threw in the towel at 10pm and baked our chicken in the oven. We were having cold cereal this night, and surprisingly the kids were disappointed.
The following morning, we decided to focus on some much needed homeschool catch-up and personal business with our passable internet service. The kids each wrote a letter to their schoolmates back home to summarize the highlights of their travel up until this point. Their perspective on the things we have seen and done is always interesting for us to hear. During what had become one of our go-to breakfasts of french toast covered in dulce de leche, Jon mentioned that he thought horses belonged in the pasture outside our kitchen window. As we sat doing our work hours later, a herd of horses sauntered up and checked in on what we were up to. The kids were delighted to get up close to the horses especially the small foal that was nursing with its mother.
We were in need of lunch and had noticed a sandwicheria sign above a window of a residential home a few doors down. As we approached the house, the matriarch stepped out looking confused. When we asked for sandwiches, she asked us to wait a moment and went back into her house. We presume she checked what was in her refrigerator and returned to tell us that she could provide us the typical Argentine lunch of carne milanesas and hamburger sandwiches. We each ordered a sandwich, and a half hour later we were delivered enormous sandwiches to our door. The patriarch of the family delivered our sandwiches and was supremely grateful for our business, wishing us safe and good future travels and thanking us for visiting their town. As we unwrapped our lunch, we found enough food to feed all of us for two more meals!
Bellies full, we drove back into Las Cardones National Park to walk several of the roadside trails. We learned about how the mountains and valleys were formed, as well as the landscape and reason for the varying vegetation through each mountain pass. For the kids, the highlight of the day was getting the opportunity to scale the cliffs and be king/queen of the mountain.
The light shifting across the Las Cardones desert revealed new features and colors each time we passed a section of highway. The sunlight at different times of day drastically change the vista. One roadside stop explained that the long straight highway we were driving was part of the Incan trail that connected all the way to Ecuador.
The cardones are the signature cacti of the area, and we to get out and see them up close. Their size is deceiving when they are off in the distance, and we were all surprised by how big they really are. Guess how many kids tested our warning about not touching the spines.
We packed up the following day to head towards Cafayate (not to be confused with El Calafate in Patagonia). We had originally hoped to head directly south from Payogasta and Cachi on the famous RN40, the same highway that stretches all the way to Cabo Virgenes and the penguin sanctuary we previously visited 4500 km to the south. The rental car agency warned that Joy2 would not be able to handle the poor conditions of the road as a result of the heavy rain and runoff that they had experienced in Salta recently. We were not unhappy to return the same way we had come to Payogasta and enjoyed the drastically changing landscape just as much as our first trip, but this time with heavier clouds and light rain. As we gained elevation to cross the peak of the mountain for our long downhill, visibility from the low-lying clouds was 20 meters in front of us at best. The kids once again rolled down the windows and took it all in, feeling and tasting the clouds. The edges of the cliff made Lauren even more nervous this time. Jon did not seem to show much concern, but his eyes were on the road in front instead of the undermining at the pavement’s edge.
This three hour drive had more landscape changes than we could have imagined. Arizona to the Smokey mountains to the Scottish highlands and the Hobbit’s Shire, back to Patagonian steppe and then flip flopping through the cycle once again. Before you have adjusted to the new landcape, it fades away and a new focal interest starts to pop up. Just as the bloggers before us, we highly recommend a visit to this region.
Solar panels, a dish, and goats; what more could you need?