Cachi!

Monday morning it was up early once again for a trip to Cachi, this little colonial town a couple hundred kilometres from Salta, once again through a variety of valleys, gorges and desert. The different landscapes around Salta are in some ways similar, but in some ways quite different. Depending on the altitude, different plats grow ( for example, cardones, a type of cactus, only grow between 2000 and 3000 metres), and each gorge has it's own palette of colours, depending on the minerals present in the rocks. But everything is quite dry. It hasn't rained in Salta for 2 months - summer is when their rains come.

I was pleasantly surprised when Alberto, the same tour guide I had on Friday, came to my door to pick me up. I was hoping that he would lead this trip, actually. What a character, very friendly, extremely knowledgable about the region, and always ready with a funny story about something. And he was the ultimate local, too, born and raised in Salta, and in love with the region. That said, I couldn't understand the funniest of his stories, because he'd break out into the Salteno dialect. The Spanish speakers would be laughing their heads off, and I'd just sort of like do that fake laugh you do when you don't really understand....

As we went around town picking up the other people for the trip, we stopped at one hotel and a middle aged woman and her elderly mother got in the van. I thought to myself, "Looks like we won't be doing anything too strenuous today..." But she turned out to be the sweetest old lady, sharp as a tack at 82 years old and 3500 metres of altitude, and hilarious. Some of her comments rivaled Alberto's in inappropriateness...

The downer of the group was this guy named Horacio, this annoying, pale, nasally-voiced guy from Buenos Aires that wouldn't stop making condescending comments about the region, the people and the landscape. And he wouldn't stop looking at his watch. Picture the equivalent of the uptight, snobby Torontonian on a tour in Nova Scotia, dissing the downhome tour guide for lack of class and wondering out loud why the region's so backward. I tried to ignore him as best I could and did my best not to accidentally open the door of the van and push as we rounded a sharp corner on the twisting mountain road. But even his annoying personality couldn't take away from the swesomeness of the landscapes.....

I haven't mentioned what we saw yet, because Virginia, one of the other people on the tour, sent me some photos she took with her digital camera! For some reason Blogger won't let me put them in this message, so I'll post them in a seperate post.