Hiking and Biking Through Northern Argentina

This post first appeared on August 1 on the University of South Carolina’s study abroad blog.

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If you had told me a year ago that this past Wednesday I would have started my day before the sun rose by climbing into a pick-up truck with two Argentine men and one American to drive two hours into the Andes while rocking to ACDC’s You Shook Me All Night Long, I would have told you that you were insane.  But, that’s exactly how my most recent Wednesday began.

After the completion of our month-long intensive Spanish course, we had a week break to do some traveling.  My friend Campbell and I decided to head up to Salta, in Northern Argentina, to escape the city and get some fresh air.  The Friday evening after our last class, we climbed into a bus and 22 hours later, arrived in Salta. We spent our first couple of days exploring the city and it’s main squares (reminded me a lot of Savannah, Georgia) and visiting the various art museums.

Monday afternoon, we popped into a bike rental place to see if we could rent some mountain bikes for the day.  Francisco informed us that we could rent the bikes overnight and ride up to a little mountain town called La Caldera.  It sounded like an adventure to us so we loaded up the bikes with our backpacks and headed up Route 9 North – a road no wider than 12 feet.  It took about 2 hours to ride the nearly 20 miles to the town, since it was mostly uphill the whole way.  We arrived to La Caldera, a tiny town that consists of about 5 blocks and whose main tourist attraction is a giant statue of Jesus on top of a mountain, and began looking for a place the stay that night.  We found a beautiful hostel on the edge of town that was well worth the less than $20 each we spent to stay there.  After checking in, we rode the two and a half miles to the Dam north of town.  We relaxed and read our books for while on the edge of the lake.  In other words, it was heaven.

The next day we rode up the mountain to see the “famous” Cristo statue.  It was interesting and slightly creepy but a feat of engineering nonetheless.  I was surprised that the number of mini-vans full of tourists that arrived there on a Tuesday morning.  While the statue didn’t enamor me, I did fall in love with the town. If I’m ever forced to go on the run, I’m moving to La Caldera.

We said goodbye to the quaint little town and rode back down to Salta, which only took about 45 minutes since it was a downhill coast most of the way.  We checked into a hostel, took a nap, ate a wonderful dinner at a cute little parilla, chatted with the French and Swiss travelers at our hostel and went to bed.  We had an early morning the next day.

At 6:45 am the next day, my alarm went off and we quickly packed our backpacks, shoveled some cornflakes and coffee into our mouths and met two Argentine men, Facundo and Santiago, outside our hostel next to their new pick-up truck.  Facundo, “Facu,” was the guide we had hired for a two-day trek through the Andes.  Santiago, “Santi,” was driving us to the start of the trail.  Two hours later, after listening to a strange mix of Lady Gaga, ACDC and Simple Plan, we arrived to the trailhead.  We spent the next two days trekking our way through the Andes, meeting the local mountain people along the way.  The next evening, we arrived back in Salta, filthy and sore but happy and relaxed.  I can honestly say that our four days of biking and hiking were some of the happiest of my life.  It was so nice to be away from smog and Internet and people and just sit and look at the mountains.

Well, since this post is getting rather lengthy and I doubt many readers have made it this far, I’ll end here and post later this week with some more details of my Northern Argentina Adventure.

Chau!