Day Two: Murder of the Legs

During the night in Choco, mosquitos (finding a niche in the microclimate by the river) feasted on my exposed parts while a rooster bellowed continually from about 1am. It wasn't the best night's sleep, but was nice to be in a bed.

The next morning we left the village behind and headed upstream, following the Choco river. I should explain that the previous day we had turned at right angles to the Colca river and headed north. The Choco is a tributary of the Colca, and has its very own narrow, steep, canyon. As the maize and alfalfa terraces of Choco faded off, the vegetation reverted to brush and cactus. It was a gentle climb over uneven terrain, crossing and re-crossing the river. There was a cool breeze blowing down the canyon and it was a relief to know that water was always close; several times I stopped and refilled my bottle from the stream.

It was over three hours up the canyon before we left the river and swung uphill. If Choco was like a Biblical paradise after nine hours dusty walk, Miña was straight out of fantasy literature. Nestled up against ever-steeper mountains, the collection of straw-roofs was preceded by a broad green swathe of cornfields and grazing cows. A long, winding path of loose rocks framed by tidy stone walls led uphill towards the village. It could easily have been the Shire (albeit mountainous) in Lord of the Rings, or any enchanted village from medieval fantasy.

On the way up the canyon we stopped for a break when we met a Choco native coming back downriver with his mule, and he and Toño spent a while discussing the relative merits of their respective animals. Later we passed a harassed-looking young guy coming the other way; Toño asked him whether he was from Miña or Choco. "No, man, I'm from Lima!" he replied. Turned out he had been up in Miña repairing the town's satellite phone. That's a long way for a maintenance man to go.

For people who had created and maintained the gravity-defying terraces which ascend the hills in sinuous green ribbons, I thought the inhabitants of Miña might have given the path up to the village a somewhat friendlier surface. Back in Arequipa, Mickey Zarate told me that the whole route up form Choco to Miña used to be much prettier; the lower part of the valley was covered with fruit trees, and apples and oranges "fell on your head". A few years ago, says Mickey, a massive huayco devastated the entire catchment; people were killed in Choco, and the fruit trees along the upper Choco river were wiped out. I guess the current path has been put back together from the rubble that must have covered the mountainside.

We followed a stream to a property perched above the village with panoramic views back down the valley, and ate lunch there. The owner, a small and cheerful man, was drying cheeses in the sun and gave Toño a cup of fresh milk.

Miña is about 3300 metres, and we still had to cross a pass at 4200 metres to reach our camping spot. Toño pointed out the bluff high on the slopes above us that we would have to round before the end of the afternoon. The previous day was I think the first time I've ever walked nine hours straight, and today we would travel a vertical 1900 metres from Choco, which I think very few people manage ever (by comparison, the final ascents of Chachani and Misti were 1200 and 1300 metres respectively).

We climbed up out of the corn-growing belt and into high-altitude desert of cactus, brush and wildflowers. I spotted a hummingbird feeding from a cactus flower. As we gained altitude a panorama spread out beneath us; the peaks of Ampato, Sabancaya and Hualca Hualca rose over the horizon, below them could be seen the great rift which is the Colca Canyon on its westward course to the sea, while perched at the foot of Ampato were tiny dots glinting in the sun - the village of Cabanaconde which we had left two days previously.

Nineteen hundred metres of vertical ascent is a killer for legs which have walked nine hours on the previous day, and as we neared the top of the pass the altitude was starting to have an impact on the oxygen supply. My calves were beginning to shake, but we eventually arrived at the top and the familiar cairns of medium-sized stone which always mark high points here. It is believed that one's sorrows and worries are left behind in these stones that are piled on mountaintops.

We dropped into a narrow, shallow valley at whose head Toño pointed out the 5200-metre pass we would have to cross the next day. There were still snowdrifts scattered beneath the rocky peaks. As we descended to our campsite - a flat area next to a stream sheltered by low walls of loose stones - we spotted groups of deer dashing up the hillsides. It was 6:30 in the evening and getting dark - we had walked another 9 1/2 hours. In the fading light we saw large, eagle-like birds circling the hills - called huachera said Toño.

We ate by a small cooking fire and Toño told me that he had served in anti-terrorist unit of the army in Ayacucho during the struggle against the Sendero Luminoso. Had he been scared, I asked. He shrugged - "we had to go where they sent us; we didn't have any choice in the matter" he said. But had he seen actual combat, I wanted to know. Oh yes, he said, there was "all kind of slaughter". He laughed - "they had compact Russian weapons with a range of 1500 metres. We had rifles like this (pretending to cradle a large and unwieldy weapon), accurate over about 500 metres".

In the dark I saw large flashes behind the mountains to the north - bolts of lightning in a clear sky? Yes, said Toño, we were seeing storms in the jungle far to the northeast beyond Cuzco.

Adventure in Andagua....

OK. I'm trekked out. Done with adventuring. Through with the Andes. In addition to the cracked lips, burnt skin, dust-ravaged sinuses, mosquito bites and blisters, I'm suffering from advanced desert-mountain-canyon fatigue. I think my next trip will be to Peru's north coast. I want seafood and cold beer, soft, humid air, palm trees swaying in the moonlight, modern vehicles roaring along long, straight highways. If I want to get in shape I'm going to the gym. If I've a hankering for spectacular landscape I'll take a scenic train trip or something.

Which is not to say that the Cabanaconde-Andagua trek was not a mind-blowing, unforgettable experience. It flirted with my physical limits, and took me across an entire piece of geography, from subtropical valley, canyon riverbed and terraced hillside to high-altitude desert, mountain basin, mineral-rich peaks and high passes, eventually arriving in an arid valley full of exctinct volcanoes. We visited improbably remote villages and stumbled across a rich variety of plant, animal and bird life without even looking for it. This trek should be mouth-watering for the botanist, anthropologist, historian, geologist, volcanologist and bird-watcher. Forget the Inca Trail - this ought to be one of Peru's, and perhaps the world's, great walks.

You know those movies where are our fugitive or stranded heroes have to walk out of the wilderness to safety/civilisation? We see them marching along looking determined, taking a break by a mountain stream, then cut to a high pass where they're trudging through snow drifts with exhausted looks on their faces, only to arrive at the glorious vista of a fertile valley below. Well, this trek was like that, only without the cinematic cuts.

There's a lot to tell, so I'm going to serialize it more or less in chronological order.

Day One - Murder of the Feet:
After the mandatory sleepless overnight bus ride from Arequipa, we enjoyed Karina's famous banana pancakes at the Valle de Fuego hostel in Cabanaconde and met the guide and donkey acquired for us by Lizbeth's father. From Cabanaconde it's a good 9 hours walk to the village of Choco - and there's no half measures, since there's literally no water on the way. Our guide Toño, a native of Cabanaconde, estimated that it's a distance of 35km. While he sometimes varied and corrected himself on his altitude estimates, his facts and figures were generally trustworthy, and I'll give him this one. Which makes it almost the entire Inca Trail in one day.

After passing through the deceptive green of the irrigated agricultural terraces around Cabanaconde we headed south-west, following the course of a road that's being built to (theoretically) link Cabanaconde with Choco. We cut across the many serpentines of the road, plodding downhill as the vegetation disappeared and the sun beat down with unrelenting fury. The track was through and across scree of shattered rock; this is the hardest surface of all to go downhill on, and only sand is harder uphill. After the first three hours my feet were already burning inside my boots.

By the time we reached the "corte" or where the road ends in a heap of shattered rock above the Colca river the landscape was resembling, if not quite the infierno, then definitely the Land of Nod to the East of Eden. Cecilia is fond of describing her work as "the rockpile", in an oblique reference to the myth of Sisyphus (or is it Prometheus? tell me someone??). You could hardly find a workplace where this more closely approximates a literal description than the tail end of the in-progress Cabanconde-Choco road. Down towards the river, the whole hillside is a rockpile of sharp, chunky scree. The workers are engaged in clearing a path wide enough for a vehicle through this rubble and piling up the rocks to form retaining walls which will theoretically prevent the road from being re-devoured by the mountainside.

Given the penchant of the Andes to unleash huaycos, or large landslides which obliterate everything in their path, and the notoriously uncertain nature of publicly-funded projects in Peru, there's more than a suggestion of the Sisyphean about the rock-piling process. But given that their only company was clouds of choking dust, the road workers we passed seemed inordinately cheerful. "Going to Andagua?" they called, guessing correctly the destination of the two gringos with guide and donkey. We nodded. "Looong way" they laughed. Well, at least they have a job.

I suspect there's also something of a pipe dream about the road. Leaving the corte and heading along the trail towards Choco, I couldn't see where a road could possibly go. Later in Arequipa, several people who knew the area smiled sadly and shared my assessment. We worked our away across a blasted heap of scree to join an excruciatingly narrow trail clinging to the canyon wall above the river, passing a small cross and memorial to two local children who had tragically tumbled off the edge.

Below, on the other side of the river appeared a small, startlingly green oasis of alfalfa plots and fruit trees. To me, with a dry throat relieved only occasionally by my rationed water, it seemed impossibly beautiful; I wanted to fly over there and bury my head in the cool green. In a landscape of such harsh contrast and drama, it's impossible not to think in mythic or Biblical terms, of Gardens, Promised Lands and Wildernesses. Good-fertile, Evil-arid makes perfect sense to a dehydrated brain.

Adding flashes of colour to the cliffs along the trail were huanarpo, small bushes of deadwood-seeming branches terminating in bright scarlet flowers. Apparently tea made from its bark is a powerful aphrodisiac - or so I interpret from Toño's comment that "men shouldn't take too much of it - it makes them very excited"

Another hour and the trail finally dropped to the river and the swing bridge to the other side. This stretch of the canyon is not the deepest - there's not the towering 5,600-metre peaks which face Cabanaconde - but it is one of the steepest. By the bridge, however, there was a cleft with a more gradual gradient and natural irrigation from above. In a wash of green, tuna cactuses, apple trees and palms tumbled down the canyon wall to the river. Toño said he had some land in these parts where he cultivated maize and fruits. Apart from guiding, which he does whenever he can, he's a "professional agriculturalist" At the age of 37 he has his work cut out supporting his six kids - one of whom is now studying systems engineering at an institute in Arequipa.

We crossed the bridge and relaxed for ten glorious minutes in the scant half-shade under the rocks. Toño pointed out a waterfall high up on the canyon side. There, about six hours scrambling climb up from his plots of land, is a pool where condors gather to bathe in the evening.

From the river it was another three hours up and along the pathway etched into the hillside, begging for the sun to drop behind the mountains.

Choco sounds like the Quechua equivalent of Grimsby, but its name doesn't do it justice - after a nine-hour march it seemed like a lost paradise. Tidy terraces following the curves of the opposite hill were the first signs of civilization. Then another curve brought us into a dramatically green valley, hemmed in by improbably steep mountains - think Ash and Anjuli's lost valley in The Far Pavilions. The path ascended through terraces of eagerly sprouting maize, overflowing with fruit trees. At 2,300 metres, Choco has a balmy microclimate, and seems to be blessed with very fertile soil. Here they cultivate avocados, figs, chirimoya, guayaba, apples, peaches, even mangoes!

The promise of unlimited fresh water dragged me up the final twisting path to the village of Choco itself, strategically elevated on a knoll above the river. For an isolated village (contact with the outside world requires the 4-5 hour walk to the corte to catch the kombi to Cabanaconde), it's surprisingly urbane and self-sufficient. They have their own electricity supply, generated by a water-driven turbine upstream and powering the village's streetlights. They also have a small trout farm. There was pure, running water from the tap and an outside toilet in a corral shared with a large white mule. As we crashed in a tidy little room of the village hospedaje the owner practiced the saxophone while his family watched videos next door.

For the love of a good parade....

If there's one thing which unites Peruvians - rich, poor and miserable, indian, mestizo and European - it's the love of spectacle, in particular of a decent parade. Central Arequipa sees an average of about two processions a week; if there's no protest organised, there's usually the feast day of some saint, or the anniversary of a college.

Yesterday in the morning it was the turn of a range of protesters, including the university workers' union, pensioners and civil construction workers. All across Peru, yesterday was a big day of strikes and protests, ranging from Ministry of Health doctors and midwives striking for more pay (sound familiar??) to people protesting against environmental contamination from mining operations. La Republica came up with the snappy headline "Paro, Luego Existo" (I Strike, Therefore I Am").

In Arequipa it was all pretty tranquil. "It's a protest, as opposed to a strike" Tessy explained to me. "Which means we don't have to close the doors when they go past". There were still the usual effigies of Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo and a few shouts of "death to Chilenos!" (Chile slightly trumps the government as the cause of everyone's misfortune).

Later in the afternoon, a smiling crowd of people marched down Santa Cantalina with streams of blue and white balloons and banners proclaiming support for, ah, the Virgin Mary. They sang, and called out "arriba Maria!" and, I think I heard this right, "arriba the Pope!". "You give us hope, Maria!" said one of the banners (I was tempted to ask "how?").

Why are they parading? I asked the girls in the office. "What - don't you know who Maria is?" said Noemi. "She's the Mother of God". Yes, but why today? They couldn't tell me...sorry, lapsed Catholic, can anyone out there tell me what is special about 25 November??

...and off to have an adventure

I have quite a bit to write about, but won't be able to for the next while, as I am off on a five-day trek in the wilderness. We're starting from Cabanaconde, near the rim of the Colca Canyon, and will be trekking to Andagua, in the Valley of the Volcanoes, where there are apparently over 300 volcanoes of all shapes and sizes. On the way passing through remote wilderness up to 5200 metres. I'm going with a French guy, who speaks only a little Spanish and a little English (I've already had to practice my French with him), and guide organised by Lizbeth's father, who is apparently some kind of shaman. Should be quite an experience - will write about it when I get back.

NB #1
Anyone who is interested in reading the stories I've submitted to various newspapers etc, click here. As always, I'd be happy to get any comments, which you can make by clicking on "comments" at the end of this post.

Last week Arequipa experienced what I believe is normally called "unrest". There were 48 hours of strikes, headed by the transport workers union and principally intended as a protest against rises in petrol tax. But diverse groups also wedded themselves to the strike, and it became a general outpouring of frustration at unemployment, the cost of living and the perceived incompetence/corruption of the government.

The first 24 hours were notable in the centre of the city mainly for the eerie peacefulness of the streets, empty of the normal bustling traffic. Roads in and out of Arequipa were blocked by pickets and stones strewn along the roads (in Peru they're not as full on as in Bolivia, where they like to block roads with wrecked vehicles). People arriving from other towns had to walk several kilometres to get into the centre. La Republica reported that there was trouble around the "pueblos jovenes" (shantytowns) of the Cono Norte area and incidents as some vehicles tried to cross the pickets.

On day two the protests spread to the centre of town as strikers marched, making laps of the central eight blocks. All the businesses along Sta Catalina had their doors pulled a little way down, and as the marchers appeared at the top of the street everyone hastily started dragging things inside and closing doors. Wan't that a little excessive, I asked the others inside our building. Aren't there protest marches all the time, without problems?

Turned out they were wise, though. On the first lap round the march was peaceful - a group with a manner proclaiming themselves as the Young Socialists handed out anti-government pamphlets with a silhouette of Che Guevara and the chants were "down with (Peruvian president) Toledo and his government" as well as "down with Cerro Verde" (the large copper mine 34 km from Arequipa; it's owned by an American company, but I don't know what exactly the principal complaint against it is)

On the second march past we were closing everything again; Lizbeth was dragging in our sandwich board where the tours are advertised, and I was sitting at the computer. I heard a couple of loud crashes and turned round in time to see the second of two sizeable stones strike the sign. I was angry - why the hell were they throwing stones at us, I wanted to know. "They say we're amarillos (yellow); we're not supporting their strike" said Tessy. "Bloody ignorant..." I spluttered, suddenly feeling less sympathy for the whole strike.

By evening the marches had mostly dissipated, but what remained was decidedly uglier. A rag-tag group of protesters made their way down Santa Catalina; one was dressed in military fatigues, giving a somewhat chilling suggestion of the Sendero Luminoso. They stopped outside Lan Peru (Lan Chile's Peruvian arm, it has been involved in various legal battles over its status as a domestic carrier) and tried to get some of the people in our shop to help them down the Lan star, which they said was "Chilean". They chanted "Death to Chileans", "Death to Lan", "Chilean Interests Out", "Viva Aero Continente" (the Peruvian national carrier) and "Death to Cerro Verde", while between times a soemwhat wild-eyed woman led chants of "El pueblo/unido/jamas será vencido" ("The people/united/will never be defeated")

Eventually they contented themselves with painting a slogan on the closed door of Lan, and moved on. The police were conspicuously absent during all this, but then that's hardly unusual.

Meanwhile, the first of several civil trials of Abimael Guzman, the imprisioned leader of the Sendero Luminoso, began in Lima. There were particular efforts to ensure that he couldn't make any televised discourse, which might be transmitted to his potential followers.

The next day everything was back to normal; the streets were choked with extra traffic, as everyone tried to get things done they hadn't been able to in the previous 48 hours. For now at least, it's business as usual.

I've now been in South America for a little over six months, so it's time for the mid-term report. Before going away, I set myself some goals. This was kind of mandatory - spending a year sampling local beverages and chasing female fellow travellers might be acceptable at age 22 or 23, but at 30+ it's necessary to set down some kind of life-improving, career-advancing or at least time-justifying Strategic Framework with Terms of Reference. Here's how I've done on the Key Performance Objectives so far:

Improving my Spanish: 8/10

This is one area where I give myself pretty good marks. The best things for improving your language skills are: staying in one place and getting to know people, getting a job, and involving yourself with local people of the opposite sex. I've done all of those things rather avidly, at the expense of other objectives. And my Spanish has improved: I feel relaxed and comfortable in most situations now, and in Arequipa often forget that I'm speaking my second language. Of course, there are still moments when I find something incomprehensible, or struggle to get words out...but then, that happens to me in English as well.

I've been quite good with books - have read once piece of serious literature from Chile, one from Peru, and am half way through another Peruvian one (how many pieces of serious literature do you read per year anyway??). Think I will read some thing Argentinian next. Bit more slack with movies - have watched far too many in English with subtitles. But there's really not that many Spanish-language movies at the cinema, and when I'm watching cable TV in my apartment in Arequipa I'm normally really tired.

The one area I haven't really challenged myself and am still lacking in confidence is speaking on the telephone. I really only ever call people I already know, and even then reluctantly. This is perhaps forgiveable, since I've always disliked the telephone. Nevertheless, this is an important area to work on.

Travel Writing: 7/10

This gets reasonable marks, if only for sheer volume. I've been quite good with the blog, after a slow start - I think it takes you a while to get the feeling for what to write, how much, and about what. Since I put the hit counter on my blog I've also noticed that regularly posting seems to have a big impact on the number of visits I get, which is obviously motivational - one must satisfy one's public...

I also wanted to put together some punchy travel stories that I can sell to magazines or newspapers. This is proving to be much more of a struggle for two reasons. One is that I haven't put quite enough effort into it - I keep getting distracted by other things. The other is that I just write too much. Whereas the ideal length for travel stories is around 1200 words, what I put together always seems to drift on to 2500-3000....well, I've always been verbose. I don't think I've got the style quite right either, and my research isn't as in-depth as it could be. There's a lack of experience there.

I'm going to put in a significant effort on this one in the coming weeks.

Having Crazy Adventures and Seeing Exotic Places: 5.5/10

I scrape a bare pass mark here. I'm not being too down on myself, since some of the objectives are incompatible, and this one has been sacrificed for some of the goals listed above. In six months, I have ticked off the bare minmum of "must dos" in the countries I've visited: Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, the Colca Canyon, San Pedro de Atacama and the Salar de Uyuni, the La Paz-Coroico road, Lake Titicaca. People on tight schedules, of course, sometimes do all these things in a month. I also get some extra ticks for the mountain climbing - Chachani and Misti might not be "technical" mountains, but how many people get above 6,000 metres at all?

However, I really haven't properly got off the Gringo Trail; almost all the places I've visisted are well-known tourist destinations. Sure, in Arequipa I've got away from doing purely gringo things (I get marks for that elsewhere). But it's still comfortable and touristic. I haven't taken the slow route from small town to small town in any country, soaking up the authentic culture and exploring little-known places. I haven't gone to any of the more impressive-sounding countries (Colombia, for reputation; Paraguay, for obscurity; Venezuela, for a bit of both). I haven't ridden on the back of a truck for twelve hours across some obscure part of the Andes or into the jungle. Hell, I haven't been to the jungle at all (it's a rather curious fact that I've managed to pass now about a year of my life in Latin America without going to the jungle at all; in fact I've only spent a few days in a truly tropical climate - in Puerto Escondido in Mexico). I haven't done any real independent tramps, carrying all my gear and food, pitching my own tent etc. I haven't been on a trip down the Amazon on a riverboat sleeping in a hammock. I haven't really taken many risks....

So, there's a significant amount to work on there.

Meeting People, Getting Work & Understanding the Culture: 7/10

On the surface, this is what I've done best. I've settled down in Arequipa and made lots of friends. I think I've picked up quite a lot about what makes Peru tick (which is a whole lot of incomprehensible things that nobody really understands). I fond that I've been involved in doing things which really interest me and use my skills (no English teaching or bar work thank god).

However, in some ways my experiences have been rather superficial. It's not only that my friends are all middle-class, but also that I've noticed that I really don't know many people who aren't involved in some way in the tourist industry. I often don't make the effort to get to know people or find out about their lives (only a couple of times have I talked to people on buses). In my experiences with "ordinary people", especially from the countryside, I recognise that I tend to focus on how dirty and rude they are, and forget to consider or ask about the circumstances of their lives, which often in Peru are incredibly difficult. I've on several occasions discovered things about everyday life in Arequipa through reading the paper, to which I'd previously been completely oblivious. This lack of effort has to an extent limited the kind of material I have for my stories and articles - I could make *much more effort* here.

I also find myself being pretty judgmental about people ("why don't they get off their asses and stop bothering me or sending their kids to sell sweets") when I'm a fundamentally lazy and lacking in initiative myself, being fortunate enough to come from a country where there are cosy and well-paying bureaucratic jobs in which people who are occasionally rude to their superiors and often late to meetings are not only tolerated, but given pay rises.

Physically & Financially Staying in One Piece: 7.5/10

It's hard to know how to mark this, since it's largely about avoidance of disaster. By and large, I have (avoided disaster), though of course it can strike at any time and I' m probably tempting fate. Money-wise, well, I've spent about $8,000 NZD in seven months - that might sound impressive, but I could easily have spent less. It's difficult to overstate how cheap the cost of living can be, at least in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Anyway, it's far more important *what* you spend money on, than how much you send (see "having crazy adventures, etc") I haven't lost any of the trip-destroying things - air tickets, wallet, passport - and have managed to keep hold of the things of secondary value - camera, electric shaver and trekking boots. Heck, I even have most of the clothes that I left NZ with.

Physically, my teeth and eyesight are still fine, which were the things I was most worried about. I got really sick once - the mandatory Lake Titicaca food poisoning case, which drifted on for a week or so and had a violent aftershock the night of my birthday in Arequipa. I regret to report that my cigarette intake has steadily increased since I've been in South America, but to counter that I think my alcohol intake is significantly lower than back home - which is not to say that there hasn't been the odd day spent in a dazed hangover. At times I've found myself a bit unfit and out of shape - while paradoxically at other times I've been in more or less the best shape of my life - after doing the Inca Trail, for example.

This is an ongoing one.

So, I get pass marks in all areas, but there's quite a lot of "could do better", Mr Bidwell!!

Key Objectives and Milestones for the Rest of My Time Here

>>Work on telephone Spanish and speaking confidently to people I don't already know; seek out more Spanish-lanuguage movies

>>Get some of those punchy 1200-word stories out!

>>Take the slow route through some more obscure places (North Peru??), take a riverboat trip in the jungle (to Iquitos??) and tick off one more impressive-sounding country (Colombia??)

>>Pitch my own tent at least once

>>Be more patient and interested in the campesinos and their somewhat miserable lives

>>Don't lose anything major (my passport, a limb)

In Salta, on the other hand, I immediately felt like I'd arrived in the right place. Surrounded by tree-covered hills, it nevertheless has an arid feel, since most of its 700mm rainfall falls December-January. It's often said that in this part of Argentina you start to feel the influence of Bolivia, and that's true to an extent. There are plenty of mestizo people, whom you don't see in other parts of Argentina, and many of the streets outside of the central few blocks are bumpy and lined with faded, crumbling buildings. But I'm not the only one to comment that the lazy feel, tree-shaded streets and pretty churches reminds them of Spain.

Salta is also sounded by beautiful and diverse countryside, from the lush microclimates near the city, to the towering, cactus-sprinkled canyons to the north near Jujuy. You can do all kinds of trekking, horse riding, biking and rafting nearby. Plus it abounds with attractive cafes, bars and restaurants and, I was assured, absolutely rocks on the weekend. I only wish I'd had more time to take it all in.

As it was I had to content myself with two days worth. On Tuesday I explored the city, photographing the churches - pastel coloured with an Andalucian influence - and climbing the Cerro San Bernado, a hill rising up behind the city. There's a cable car to the top, but of course, I had to take the hard way, up the exactly 1,000 steps (the numbers are marked at intervals of 50). There are little grottos marking the stations of the cross on the way up. On the thorny hillside with the sun beating down and the previous night's bbq and wine squeezing out of my pores, it did rather feel like my own personal Calvary. Later I checked the internet to find that the temperature had hit 31 degrees. Salta has a beautiful, warm climate, with the summer months aliviated by afternoon storms; it averages 26-28 six months of the year, but it's in the months October-December that the temperature can soar up towards the 38 degree mark.

On Wednesday I was up early to go rafting on the rio Juramento, about two hours drive away below the dique (dam) of Cabra Corral. The river wound through beautiful steep canyons with eroded layers of different colours. The rapids were grade III, ideal for beginners, they say, to which I would agree. There were only a few moments of "un poco de emoción", as the guide described it, the rest was pretty relaxed. Of course none of us had any idea what we were doing; the guide oversaw the direction of the boat and told us when to paddle. Nevertheless, I wasn't the only one to feel like I perhaps could handle something a little more dangerous.

On the way down the river we saw dinosaur footprints on a flat part of the canyon wall. According to the guide, it had been a stormy beach before the Andes rose up; later erosion has peeled away the layers of silt that covered over the dinosaurs' prints in the wet sand. The last 200 metres of the trip the guide told us we could throw ourselves out of the boat and float down to the bank, bouyed by our life jackets. Great fun! - and possible because the water was about 15 degrees; you wouldn't try that on the white water in NZ...

Apart from me, a Mexican guy and an English girl, the rest of the people in the two rafts were again Argentinians. It makes the tourist experience a little more genuine when you're doing it with local people.

I should also mention that the hostel in Salta was one of the most pleasant I have stayed at - run by young Argentinians (and one Israeli) who seemed to be enjoying themselves, it has a nice roof terrace with a bar and a collective bbq every Wednesday. Even though I was only there a couple of days, I felt like I'd made some friends, and was quite sad to leave.

If you have the chance, go to Argentina!! In upcoming editions, I'll explain why...

Sometimes you really feel like you've drifted into a different dimension in transit. So it was with my day in Tucuman. The only reason I went there was to break up the trip from Mendoza to Salta (though it was still 14 disorienting hours overnight on the bus). I knew nothing about it, except that Martin Santillan, who worked in the Albert Hotel in London (he was "loud Martin" as opposed to "tall Martin", who was from Mar del Plata) was from there. Lonely Planet said it was the centre of a big rice and sugar-growing area, and had a hot climate ("visitors in the summer months may find the heat very oppressive"). It was also supposed to be rich in colonial history, peppered with orange trees, and one could still see the occasional horse-drawn cart wending its way through the streets. Sounded quaint.

Imagine my puzzlement, then, when the bus left the highway after 14 hours travel and two hours unexplained delay, to wend its way past faded, peeling buildings through crumbling streets, under deathly leaden skies starting to release big cold drops of rain. The big sign over the bus terminal did say "TUCUMAN", so I was assured I hadn't got on the wrong bus in Mendoza, at least not in this dimension. The largely open-air bus terminal did indeed give indications of a warm climate, but there was none of it in evidence as the skies began to open shortly after I got off the bus.

The streets appeared to conform to the map in my LP, and the recommended hotel even existed. But there was no sign of colonial architecture, orange trees or anything resembling sun in the grey, drab streets. Exhausted from the long trip and a big night out in Mendoza previous to leaving, I crashed in my hotel bed and listened to the rain pelting down onto the incongruous airy balconies.

By later afternoon I was awake and desperately hungry, so I went out looking for something to eat. The town was if abandoned even by ghosts, and the rain was still pouring down in cold waves. It reminded me of nothing more than some of the less attractive parts of Christchurch in winter. I had rediscovered siesta when in Mendoza (in South America, unique to Chile and Argentina outside the capitals) but there were still plenty of things open from 2:00 to 5:00. In Tucuman, however, the streets were completely deserted, and I looked in vain for something to eat. Eventually, near the main square, with its few colonial buildings emerging through the mist, I found what appeared to be a comedor, a few tables and chairs inside a bare cavernous space, with one couple huddled together over a bottle of beer. After some persuasion, the elderly woman there admitted that yes, she had some empanadas, and 15 minutes later I managed to assuage some of my hunger.

Later I found an internet cafe where the pretty girl working at the counter wished me "suerte" as I left. Evening had arrived, shops were opening, and there were some people in the streets. The rain had stopped, and orange trees had appeared in the plaza, but there was still a chilly breeze blowing. I found an Italian restuarant, where I gorged myself on pizza, then went back to the hotel to crash once more. A couple of hours later I felt something biting me. Mosquitos!! They had also been brought over from the steamy, subtropical Tucuman dimension. I smeared myself with repellent and went back to sleep to be plagued by vivid, guilt-wracked dreams for the rest of the night.

The next morning the sky was clear, the sun was bright, and I was off to Salta. "I thought this place was supposed to hot" I said to the taxi driver on the way to the bus station. "It is" he replied. "Then what was yesterday about" I wanted to know. "I don't know" he frowned. "It was strange...unstable, very unstable" he muttered. I don't know whether he meant the weather, or the fabric of the space-time continuum.

As the bus drove out to meet the highway to Salta, we passed plenty of orange trees. Just at the turn-off, there was even a horse-drawn cart.

As a postscript, I note from checking on the internet, that Tucuman has spent most of this afternoon and evening hovering around the 34 degrees Celcius mark.

We're actually galloping...at what seems like a hundred miles an hour down the canyon, the horses' hooves are throwing up dust, I'm desperately trying to simultaneously grip with my knees, keep my feet in the spurs, and maintain my balance. Bouncing up and in the saddle, I keep having the wind knocked out of me.

It lasts what is probably, in real time, a couple of minutes. I can't imagine keeping it up for any longer, let alone turning round in the saddle to fire my revolver at any pursuing bandidos. When we stop I ask Tito whether we were in fact galloping - what exactly does galope suave mean? He talks me through the speeds of a horse: the walk, the trot, the galope suave and the carrera (literally "race"). Right, so a galope suave is a canter. It sounds more impressive in Spanish. But Tito says I've done well, and that not many manage to do any kind of gallop their first time. "Look how your mood's changed from the way out to the way back!"

He's right - I was rather apprehensive this morning, having booked the horse riding rather despite myself. I think someone had told me that it was one of the Things to Do in Mendoza, and I had it classified anyway as something I Ought to Do At Least Once in South America. There were to have been five people in the horse-riding group, but the other four apparently cancelled at the last minute, leaving me to do it alone. Great, I thought, I'm not even going to have company in my incompetence.

I shouldn't have worried; Tito is very used to guiding beginners, and was very relaxed, which in turn affected me. He says he used to be an executive in a multinational company, but gave it up recently as it was too stressful. He learnt to ride on the pampas of his parents' hacienda in the Buenos Aires as a kid and now has a little ranch only 10 minutes from the centre of Mendoza. His dogs were going barking mad with anticipation as drove up; apparently they love going out on the horse treks.

It was hard to believe that we were so close to the city, as we rode out into the badlands near Tito's ranch - there was no sign of any other people, alone civilization. The horses walked through narrow quebradas and dry gulches, stained with salt deposits leached by the occasional storm waters which had created the pathways. Amidst the brush and cactus there were splashes of red, yellow and white wildflowers, and every so often the single flowering bulb of a cactus. After a while I began to relax on the horse. "Have a cigarette if you want" called Tito. "It tastes completely different on a horse...I can't, because I've got a sore throat right now".

We broke into the occasional trot, climbed up and down little rises, then some steeper hillocks. At first I was a little stiff with fear, but gradually gained more confidence. The horse knows what it's doing, I told myself. And it's not actively trying to throw me off,in fact it knows full well that I'm supposed to stay on it...what have I got to worry about? Overhead, a condor floated. "It knows me" said Tito. "Sometimes it comes down closer and teases the dogs".

On the way back we spurted along the flat bits, breaking into a couple of gallops. Well,canters, I suppose. I didn't really have any choice about whether I followed, as my horse, well aware that I didn't really know what I was doing, prioritised following Tito's horse ahead of any instructions I might give it. Still, a little out of breath, I survived. I think I might even do it again one day soon.

Two hours of sleep wasn't a great prelude to my "Alta Montaña" tour, but with 85 Chilean tourism students determined to party in the hostel patio every single night, it was a case of if you can't ignore them, join them. Still could have been a little bit less enthusiastic with the beer, and I was cursing myself when they woke me up from my dead-to-the-world slumbers to go on the tour. It almost felt like Puno & Lake Titicaca all over again.

Turned out to be a minibus, stop-and-snap trip, which normally I avoid like the plague, but am keen to see as much as possible in the short time I'm here. The other passengers all turned out to be other Argentinians, mostly from Buenos Aires, and included two distinct honeymooning couples and another couple of retired schoolteachers. Together with the bubbly, enthusiastic guide Noelia, it made for a pretty jovial atmosphere on the bus, which I didn't appreciate that much at first, but cheered me up as the day wore on.

The crossing of the Andes from Santiago was spectacular, as the road serpentined up right through the middle of the chunky granite peaks. I thought of San Martin crossing the Andes, and the journalist hero and heroine of Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows escaping to Argentina.

After that I dozed while we dropped down through dry canyons into the vineyard heartland of Argentina. Coming into Mendoza we left the multi-laned freeway full of rushing traffic. The city itself, with its broad avenues lined with shady deciduous trees, has a 19th-century feel, and immediately reminded me of Paris or Kensington in London. The sheer modernity is overwhelming too; full of bright shops and restaurants and tiled sidewalks, Mendoza doesn't seem on the same planet, let alone the same continent, as central La Paz. It's hard to believe that Argentina has economic problems; everything seems more modern and advanced even than in Chile, and no one even looks like they're thinking about asking you for money.