April 30, 2009
We left Salta in a rental car after only arriving the previous day on the bus from BA. Salta was just another big South American city minus the sky scrapers and huge apartment blocks, that did not call out to us. Santiago suggested that drive to San Antonio on Route 51 through the mountains. It was a spectacular drive through many small towns. The out skirts of Salta after the airport had interesting homes and a restaurant we would have eaten in if we were hungry already. We did come to one fork in the dirt road by a river that I was not sure of so we pulled over and shortly a police vehicle arrived, pointing us to take the road to the right and up the hill. Soon we saw the disused rail road on the opposite side of the river. At times when that river was in full flow, it would be spectacular and devastating. The vegetation changed several times, colorful soil giving way to rocky terrain with countless cactus standing like soldiers, then after a while, none. The road was pretty good, but very dusty and in places bumpy. We transverse at around 60 km an hour and sometimes would drop to 40 km/hr but that was not too often. I over took one car and had one other come the opposite direction. Here and there were a few settlements but not much else.
After about an hour we stopped to take a photo and spotted a settlement with a few sheep. The Sheppard wondered over and we tried to communicate. He pointed to the mountain, spoke many Spanish words of which we could make out nothing. After a few minutes, he gave up and we continued on our way. Some 30 km later we came to more modern settlement. There was a policeman stopping “traffic”. He wanted to see the car papers and our passports and waved us on our way. About another 20 km later, the only traffic we passed were two military trucks with soldiers going the opposite way and a lorry struggling, we climbed a steep mountain. The views were indescribable. Snow covered peak set against a brilliant blue sky. Mountains of various color gradations with ever changing desert vegetation. A settlement that could be hundreds of years old, with a solar panel. Then suddenly, there was a hitch hiker, a woman with a bag adamant that I stop. Of course she spoke no English and was trying to tell me something. I figured out the word two, but nothing else. At first I thought she wanted two pesos. But that made no sense. Then I showed her the hitch hiking sign as I remember that was what she was doing when I first spotted her, and she acknowledged it but kept saying two, till I figured out that there were two persons hitching a ride and wanted to go to San Antonio.
It was at first a bit of a pain having two passengers as we had to clean up the back seat. I got a dirty look from Darlene, but her humanitarian side quickly emerged. The other woman appeared from a shack on the opposite slope, came running carrying a big bag. There was no room in the trunk for their bags, but we got the back seat re-arranged so that they could get their bags in and be comfortable. And an adventure was about to unfold that was unknown to us.
About a half hour later the older woman showed us a woven Andean weave. It was beautiful but had little interest to us as all we could think of was what room we had in our backpacks. Then she showed us another, and another, trying to tell us something in Spanish. Then Darlene asked about a sweater, and low and behold, we had a traveling market in the back seat. They had alpaca after alpaca sweater, scarves, vests and even some kids’ sweaters. They had all kinds of designs and colors and soon Darlene’s lap was covered and she was stacking some on the dashboard that grabbed her eye, and they still had more to show us. We wanted something for Shelby, but what we had in mind they did not have in their bag, but explained at the cassa was more. So we took them home, to their cassa where they had so much more to show us. In the process they learned that we were heading to Purmamarca and could they come.
San Antonio was a desolate, barren place of Adobe houses and more dusty streets. After buying a Alpaca sweater each, two scarves and something for Shelby for A$R200 (we got a A$R40 discount for giving them the ride), we were hungry and wanted to find food. I was so hungry I was getting light headed. They knew of a restaurant in town. On our way to it, the younger woman with a pretty round Andean face, pulled out a cell phone and made a call. Here we were where the most modern things were a car, solar panels and a TV, they had cell coverage. Take all this away and we were back 200 years into history.
The first restaurant was closed, but there was a second and Darlene was able to have chicken and I a piece of meat, with French fries. Then off we were on the adventure on a road not many cars transverse. It was a tough road and at best I could do 30km/hr. After a while, glad we had the two locals with us as we may have feared being lost, the one woman told me to go left onto a dirt track. This was strange. Leaving the main bumpy road for a track that should have a 4*4 on it, not a minute rental car? And not knowing why. The city mind was were they taking us somewhere where they were going to rob us? If so, they could have done that anywhere in the last two hours. Were we being fooled and we were taking them to some other place they wanted to go, but not us? But human kindness must always prevail and our belief in trusting. That dirt track ran parallel to the bad road and was a better ride. We took it for some 25 minutes till it got bad and the woman pointed me back to the main road.

Slowly the hours passed and some how we all managed to communicate in sign language and saying words over and over till some how they made sense. We saw Llamas with ribbons and colored ears, many donkeys and then some other animals that they got very excited about, Vicuna. They were wild and we think gave some of the best wool. The dusty road was bad, very bad, but passable. It was route 40 to Salinas Grande. We were driving on some kind of a plain with mountains either side off in the distance. We passed one car, and about 10 miles away to the west I saw the dust of another car heading towards those mountains. We were maybe 40 miles from those western mountains and maybe 15 miles east of another. This was the vast ocean equivalent of nothingness. Then came the sight of Salinas Grande maybe 20 miles away. We could see the shimmering whiteness of the salt flats, once a lake, now gone. We got closer and closer, but never to it. We skirted it on this dusty, attention demanding, rutted dirt road. And then it ended on a tar road and we made a left turn to go see the salt flats of Salinas Grande, away from our destination, but only 15 km out of our way.
Salinas Grande was something. We drove off the high way onto the salt. It was a better ride and intriguing. The salt had formed tiles about 6*8 feet. These tiles had ridges surrounding them. Darlene went prone to lick, one salt like that covered several hundred square miles. Salt was being scraped for commercial processing. We got our little bag of scrapings and photos with the two woman who told us to continue driving on the salt towards Chile. Some miles later we came to what looked like ice fisherman in the middle of a frozen lake. They were selling salt sculptures. We turned there for the main road and another structure…an entire building, with tables and chairs, built of salt, complete with chapel and sculptures of Llamas. What a sight.
We turned away from Chile and began our climb into the mountains. It was one of those snaking roads, doubling back so many times as we climbed, and then doing the reverse on the other side of the mountain. It was intense driving. On the opposite side the erosion calved by the winds looked like chocolate flakes, shape, jagged, ready to crumble at the slightest. Then we were arriving in Purmamarca and the two women were pushing on. We debated whether to push on to the town they were heading to, assuming that accommodations they would find would be cheaper, but Darlene was ready to get out of the car. We dropped them and bid them farewell, having spent a day communicating without a single common word. To us the mystery remains, where they planning to go to this destination at this time, or did we just happen to provide the opportunity at that moment and they seized the time? And the other big questions, was why were they heading there, hundreds of kilometers from home.