Argentina

Monte Quemado

On Monday, July 25th I fled this sad town of Resistencia and its lamentable camping municipal as of the sunrise towards Salta. Ruta RN#16 is quasi rectilinear at all the distance and very tedious. From Resistencia the temperature leapt up of +10°C, with 12°C under my truck at 6:00 a.m. On the way it reached +30°C around 13:00. Moreover the cotton fields made their appearance and the accesses of the road carried the marks of fire or burn-beating! I bivouacked halfway between these two cities at Monte Quemado on the carpark of a gas station.

Salta

Tuesday, July 26th was the second phase towards Salta. The two stages represent nearly 800 km. The roadway is sometimes in very bad condition. I stopped to have lunch at a gas station which, oh happiness, had a Wifi connection enabling me in three-quarter hours (!) to publish the pages of my website of the previous week. On the highway little before the entry in Salta a kiosk Tourism Office supplied me in maps for the continuation of my trip in the north Argentina. Plaza of 9 de Julio, downtown area, will be difficult to visit tomorrow because the parking is prohibited, to follow. I used a bivouac in a quiet street. Salta is at 1200 meters high, the temperature is down.

On Wednesday, July 27th I left the bivouac around 7:30 to find a parking close to Plaza 9 de Julio. I then began my visit to the forefront of day while turning around Plaza which exposed photographs of the beginning of the 20th century. I entered the catedral where many faithful expected the beginning of the religious office. Further away in the calle Casero Iglesia de San Francisco is recognizable with the pink color of its walls. At a hundred meters in the same street Convento de San Bernardo dates from the 16th century but its is accessible only by the nuns. The museums open only at 11:00 and the top of Cerro San Bernardo was in the clouds. I went my way to go to take appointment with the Mercedes-Benz garage to carry out the periodic revision on my back from Chile. Finally after a snack around midday I took the road for San Salvador de Jujuy and a bivouac in the mountains at 1427 meters high.

Visite de Salta, click the picture

San Salvador de Jujuy

The visit of San Salvador de Jujuy will not leave an imperishable memory. As usual I turned around the main Plaza, here Plaza Belgrano. The first building was Cabildo, city-hall, then the catedral of 1763 with a splendid pulpit covered with gold sheets. Two stained glasses drew my attention putting forward, the proverb, Gold God and Glory. At side the museum with in a patio the Belgrano General and the flag of Argentina, exhibits liturgical objects whose two parts are remarkable by their smoothness, but alas No Photo. Paseo de las Artesanias presents very coloured articles. Finally the old railway station is preceded by an equestrian statue of the General Belgrano, hero of the independence of Argentina and creator of the national flag.

Visit San Salvador de Jujuy, click the picture

Hornocal

I continued my way up to Hornocal after 23 km of track to admire Quebrada de Humahuaca. I took pictures with all the materials at my disposal to vainly try to have the colors of this natural patchwork, without success. Filters had been needed! I went down again of a few hundred meters to bivouac.

Hornacal, click the picture

ruta#9

On Friday, July 29th to have rest of the high altitude I decided to pose to me at the camping El Jardin in Tilcara, alas without Wifi connection. While crossing Humahuaca by the narrow streets I reached Ruta-#9 to return to Tilcara while strolling with stops to Uquia to take pictures of the artisanal market under installation. Further it was in Huacalera built on the Tropic of Capricorn. I arrived around 12:00 at the camping El Jardin where I settled for three nights. In the small hour the temperature was negative.

On the ruta #9, click the picture

Tilcara

Tilcara village

On Monday, August 1st before the sunrise I left for the Chile border at Paso de Jama. I took pictures on the way which remain in my album. On the other hand I want to testify to the innovations of the last version of QuoVadis 7.3.0.11. The development team created a compiler then an engine to calculate the streetrouting on OMS maps. I have used OMS maps of South America put at the disposal of QuoVadis customers for several weeks. I show of it an example above with a section of the road from Tilcara to Paso de Jama on Argentina map. The tracklog calculated by the QuoVadis engine is in red, the tracklog sent by Garmin GPSmap 276C is in blue. They are superimposed very exactly. It is bluffing. I will not make comments on the precision of the  Argentinien map by Reise Know-How Verlag!

Crossing the border

I left Argentina on Monday August 1st at Paso de Jama at 4200 meters high. Look at Crossing the border, here