Crossing the Andes, Again

We begin to understand why crossing into Salta, Argentina from Atacama, Chile takes 12hrs. The cue for passport control is several hundred people long. We were due to depart at 900am. Don Roberto, our driver, only arrived at the hotel in his Mahindra 4x4 at a leisurely 10am, and seems quite relaxed about the immigration formalities. This is not a place to be in a hurry.

At least it's still shady at this time of day, sandwiched between Brazilians and Germans, Swiss Family Viesulas passes the time reading and taking turns at the local cafe', while the Brazilians, true to form, provide music. The 30mins either side of the border in Patagonia is looking like childsplay. For rapidly modernizing countries, Argentines and Chileans alike are still very fond of their paperwork. Massive notebooks, a Gulliver version of what you had at school, with line after line of handwritten numbers. The sort of task I'd been assigned by Jesuit teachers in high-school detention once (but more on that later).

We're taking the road less travelled, avoiding the tourist coaches by heading into no-man's land and the Paso de Sico. So we're bound to make up time along the way. Or at least that's the theory... In practice, Don Roberto's lassitude doesn't let up with the altitude. Fair enough, as the road is rudimentary. And spectacular. I can't really improve on the photo-reportage that Florence put together for Pirouette. The terrain, colours change every few km, subtly all along, until you find yourself in a radically different landscape from a few moments ago. A kaleidoscopic colour wheel and spectacular salt plains at 3350m, once lakes dried up in the Holocene, help keep the trip hallucinogenic and lively.  We're happily resigned to Andean tempo by now. And besides, all of us have had the giggles all along, but the altitude at one point gives Flo hysterics. "Yo, listen up! Put the bear down!" 

 

It turns out that the cues in San Pedro were a preamble to the Argentine checkpoint here in the middle of picturesque nowhere (look at those cliffs! Giants at play again). The border official with a golden smile asks me my profession, when I reply "Finanza", he says, knowingly, "Ah, Contador!" The poster of St John the Baptist above his head reads "Paz, Pan y Trabajo". Slow going to get to the Argentine border - it's 4pm - but we also hadn't banked on the complex exchange of vehicles from one convoy to another at the actual border. Don Roberto's only taking us half way. For the other half, we're waiting for travellers and luggage to gain critical mass before a convoy of three very different vehicles heads off in the direction of Salta. If they head off at all. The lightning storm on the horizon is fast approaching, and ariving from Salta these guys have already had to contend with roads that have been simply washed away.  

The Brazillians are there, but they're no longer singing. No one told them there is nothing to eat along this stretch of road. Nothing at all in fact. Not a gas station, not a kiosk or shepherd cabana, nothing.

It starts raining. We pile somewhat reluctantly into a Chevy hatchback ("surely the VW 4x4 would be better for our carsick children?"), driver Ramon looking like Dizzy Gillespie his cheeks are so swollen with coca leaves. He chomps them incessantly for the rest of the ride. As night falls, we understand why. He does this route - back and forth - every day. 

Part two of our Andean crossing is also completely hallucinogenic, though for entirely different reasons. The rain let's up, and Jas cheers with delight as we plough through one flowing riverbed after another at speed, Dakkar style. The three-vehicle convoy has no CB radio. It's all an elaborate semaphore of Hazard and Turn Signals, and frequent stops to regroup. Ramon's fuel guage is looking alarmingly low.


We top out at ca4900m. I find myself short of breath, in spite of the coca bundle in my mouth. As we negotiate the more vertiginous hairpins on the way down, I'm grateful for the Chevy and that we're not in the mini-van, peering down the cliffs from a height. 


We drive past the ancient Socompa rail crossing that used to serve these parts, the faded red-and-white poles looking so lonesome. We drive past Olacapato, Argentina's highest village at 4090m. We drive past many abandoned buildings, all settlements former (or actual?) mining camps that grew up around the now defunct railway, with evocative names like La Casualidad, the end of the road and about as remote as it gets in Argentina. We stop for dinner in desolate San Antonio de Los Cobres. Exhorbitant, but what's the alternative? In any event, Iris is mesmerized by the local X-Factor for Kids on TV, and the Girls describe the grilled llama and chicken as one of the best meals they've had. 



Departing, we're witness to the most amazing lightning show on the plains below, set to rumbling thunder and a sountrack courtesy of Ramon that alternates Eurovision rave music with sountracks from romantic cinema. For much of the ride we sing along.  

Then we too stop singing. It starts to really bucket down, as the road narrows. The signs are discouraging: "Mr Traveller, Avoid Travelling in Darkness and on Days of Rain". Taciturn Ramon, who's barely spoken a word the entire trip, says "Aqa, Peligro: Cascada, Precipicio".

It's a tortuous last 25km, the worst of the trip. On arrival at the sumptuous Legado Mitico around 11pm, we're told by the nightshift that they don't have room reservation for us after all, there's been a misunderstanding, you see, no children under the age of 12. But Jasmine and Iris cast their spell once again, and we are taken in for a deep, deep sleep.

Over breakfast, the hotel manager is speechless. Not at the fact that we've managed to smuggle in the Pixies, but that we were "taken for a ride" across the Paso di Sico, where noone ever goes, and certainly not in stormy weather.

Later, I look up the Lonely Planet entry on this remote part of Argentina: "Take all your fuel needs from San Antonio, where you can buy 200L drums, and inform police of your plans. Don't wander off-road around Mina La Casualidad, as some landmines from a 1970s dispute with Chile are still around".