Murray's Whirlwind Trip

11/20/2005

Hola,

Almost three months in now, its been a whirlwind of a trip so far, im packing as much in as possible. The landscape is increadible...

in a 3 hour bus ride last week I started in a hot dry city (Cordoba) and within an hour I was in a cloud forest, then as quicly as it appeared, I was in flat drylands littered with cactus and the odd clay house. But an hour later I was plonked in a village surrounded by 5000 metre mountains (Tafi Del Valle) with lakes and Condors and a whole bunch of Gauchos without teeth.

This village is where I teamed up with a guy from Holland and started a hike that almost ruined us, A few hundred metres from a 3600 metre peak we were caught by fog and lost the way back, with condors circling overhead we took refuge in an abandoned stone hut but decided to get the hell outta there and eventually made it back to the village after way too many hours hiking in a few metres visibility with loads of cliffs and danger surrounding us.

Then we visited the Incan Ruins in a town called Quilmers, which incidently is the name of the VB equivalent beer over here and boy does it pack a hangover! Then we had a very random experience and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere following a gaucho home who wanted to take us horseriding.. 3 hours in a saddle is waaaaaaay tooo long!!

I also managed to squeeze i a visit to Che Guavaras Casa! Checked out his bedroom and picked up his gold clubs then got busted by a grumpy woman who screamed something in spanish at me... His bike was also there but I didnt dare going near it after the gold club experience.

LLAMAS are the softest animans on the planet, we met a few in the wild and im currently on the lookout for a llama jumper.

Its 3pm here in Salta, in northern Argentina and pretty much everthing has shut until about 6pm...its not even that hot... almost 30 degrees, these people just love their siestas. A few days ago I found a small dog... abandoned on the street in Cafayate... I have taken her in for the first few months of her life to give her a better chance... she might even travel with me for a few months before I can find a good home for her or get her back to aus... she is tops... 30 days old now... I named her Sudi (which is an incan god... the protector if ninos (little things)) and we call her Sudi de Cafiyate.

So thats just a brief rundown of the last few weeks but its been a blast.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

Murray

The Photos

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