Northern Argentina

In San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) we said good-bye to our friends and took off for Argentinian border. A new country again, how different they have all been, and how interesting. The border was the usual “gong show” and again, we had to pay $ 160 each to be able to enter the country. Fruits and veggies, dry beans, fresh eggs and such all are “verboten”. We knew that this time, boiled the eggs and had a big cook off before hitting the border. The drive was beautiful, more canyons and desert. We were dying for some green and drove to Salta. Argentinians love car camping and there are many camp grounds to choose from. Some nice and clean, some not so, some with wifi (usually bad) some with pools (usually empty). We wanted to visit the town of Salta and the Dodge dealer. The truck has been running really well, but an oil change was due. So we headed for the Salta municipal campground and got a good dose of Argentinian campground life.

It was summer vacation time (mid Dec to mid Feb) and the camp ground was full, the pool was huge but empty. A big part of their camping experience is grilling and consuming lots of meat, listening to music from the car stereos, drinking mate and socializing. One has to get used to their timing, the afternoons can be quiet when everybody is napping. They come back to life in the evening, start their fires around 10 pm, cook and eat around midnight and sometimes you can hear them and the music until the wee hours in the morning. We found out the hard way and were laughing when we woke up in the middle of the night and were both groping around the camper trying to find our ear plugs.

In Cachi, a little town in the hills we decided to stay for a while. The climate was mild, the air clean and the sleepy town nice. To get there we drove to through more desert, there had been one of those E Nino downpours a few days before and the desert was blooming, covered in yellow Hieronymiellas that grew between large cardon cactuses. We kept going south, headed for wine country (Mendoza area) and to the high mountains again.