Violet Mountains and Green Vinyards

I met back up with Lou and Landon in the city plaza in Salta, Argentina. It is a beautiful plaza, decorated in Colonial Spanish attire, with balconies perched out from second story stucco palaces, and beautifully designed cathedrals adorned by their worshippers. The new and very beautiful female President was being sworn in today, and the Plaza was filled with political propoganda, drumming interludes, and cheering citizens.

We left Salta and headed up into the Northwestern Argentine Andes towards Cachi. The ride took us on a winding road through a national park known for the conservation of a particular cactus of the region. The cactus looks like the type you see on cartoons when you are able to calculate the speed of the Road Runner as he crosses each cactus spread 50 yards from each other at 0.35 second interval. That is near 450 feet per second...that Road Runner is fast.

Avoiding any more side track notes, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride to Cachi. It is a very dry and dusty climate. At one point on the road, I looked up at the violet mountain to my left and saw the remnants of a lost waterfall. It´s stained red wall had showed years of Andes runoff into the river below, which now lies dry and baron to the sun.

That waterfall encouraged me to come up with a poem, of which I was successful in doing. This poem is now under review by a poetic critic, and will be released upon acceptance of validity. I do not write poems often, nor do I understand the intricacies of poetry, so I first must have it reviewed extensively.

Our evening quarters in Cachi were separated, where the older gentlemen took to the hostel for a peaceful rest and I took up into the mountains to the camp site, where I started a fire from twigs and cactus wood, sat under the plethora of stars, and gazed off into a spiritual bliss providing me with immense tranquility. The bottle of Etchart Malbec from Cafayate, did however play a factor in my serenity.

The next morning, we took off on Route 40, a legendary road in Argentina, much like our Route 66, for being the longest road in this stretched out land. It was gravel, incredibly sandy, and filled with some of the most dangerously vivid beauty that I have ever seen. Lou described it as breathtakingly Grand Canyon-esque. The heat and dryness took the life from most plants, however, the cactus remained a part of our journey, and our sandy Route 40 constantly tried to pull us from our carriages.

It was on this six hour journey down Route 40 to Cafayate, where I came up with a possible name for my sweet motorcycle. I asked her what she thought about the name ¨Beatrice.¨ She still has not responded to me, however, she road hard and well that day and never gave me any grief. Her determination, black beauty, and ferocious willpower seems so much like a Beatrice to me.

Our night in Cafayate at the Hostel El Balcon, was filled with great Argentine wines and a happily prepared pasta meal by your´s truly. I sat on the Terrace, over looking the plaza, thinking of all the wineries that I would have to visit the next day. I then looked up at my first star of the evening and wished very hard. I wished for all my friends to be out of that miserable wintry weather, and to be with me at that very moment. I am sorry...it was later discovered that is was not a star at all, but a passing satellite readily available to transfer my messages in order to innitiate envy. However, please trust me...the wine was fantastic!