Desert Country

We have spent the last week and a half driving north from Mendoza to Salta on Ruta 40, which parallels the Andes Mountain Range in Argentina. The area is primarily desert and has some absolutely spectacular scenery, including many parks, 6 metre high cacti, dinosaur bones, ancient ruins, adobe houses and churches, tiny, isolated villages, high altitude vineyards, and much more.

Ruta 40 is the main “highway” (and we use that term very generously) that runs North/South through the interior of the country (over 4000 km in total). In some places it is a modern highway, while in many other cases it is nothing more than a very poor dirt road. Likely because the rivers beds are often dry, and bridges are expensive to build, they have chosen to forgo most of the bridges, instead, you just ford the creeks and rivers or stay put until the water level drops again.

With a chance to explore an old gold mine and to see just how far we could go up an old road (I think this could be a male thing), one day Andrea and I headed west from Chilicitos up an old mining road. This road went up to nearly 5000 metres and to some good hiking areas. A park warden had shown us the photos of his trip and it looked spectacular. Unfortunately, we only made it just over half way (19 km), before turning around. Even for the Hilux it was a little steep.

We were hoping to continue north of Cachi up to San Antonio and then head back down to Salta. Unfortunately, about 100 km in to a 140 km section of the “highway”, and at an elevation of about 4000 metres we were forced to change plans. After crossing many creeks and successfully navigating what was nothing more than a dirt track, the Hilux finally met its match. In the middle of no-where, the road was completely washed away. Despite that fact that we had to back track and take another route, we were happy that we had gotten off the beaten track and had seen some amazing scenery. In addition, we also learned to read a little further ahead in the guidebooks as it was very clearly written “this section of RN 40 is often closed in winter due to heavy snowfall and in summer due to wash outs. Check with local authorities before attempting.” Lesson learned.