Paragliding with Che - Around Cordoba

This post is out of order and I can´t work out how to fix it... sorry, Blogger is a pain sometimes.

After returning from Patagonia and hanging out in Mendoza for a bit, I headed towards Iguassu falls, but I stopped off in Cordoba for a few days to more fully explore the surrounding regions. I arrived during the weekend and headed out to a German beer festival with a friend from Cordoba (sorry, no photos, I was too busy drinking, it´s really amusing hearing everyone speaking Spanish at a German beer festival though). I also headed out to nearby Alta Gracia to see the Jesuit Estancia, and also the Che Museum, housed in the building where the famous guerilla grew up. Purely by coincidence, it was the anniversary of his death, and there were several people speaking at the museum, including Alberto Granado, famous for accompanying Che in ¨The Motorcycle Diaries¨.

Alberto is under where it says ¨Gracia"... what a terrible photo, I only had a disposable camera.

There was a cool outdoor cathedral in Alta Gracia too.

The following day, I headed out to Parque Nacional Quebrada de la Condorito, which was good to explore. I managed to see several condors, and you get a good sense of the vast remoteness of much of Argentina, wandering by yourself through the barren expanse (there were very few other people around).

Next, I took a longer trip out to La Cumbre, where my guidebook had promised fabulous paragliding (parapenting en Español). Unfortunately the winds were unsuitable, but while waiting I did a bit of pretty casual mountain biking, and also cycled out to see some of the artesenal food places, and a black howler monkey refuge (entrance pictured; I have better monkey pictures from later in my trip).

The next afternoon, I was finally able to go paragliding. I know you can´t tell, but it is me in the photos. It was an unexpectedly beautiful location, and the paragliding itself was a really amazing experience. You can really feel that there´s almost nothing between you and the ground - my guess is it´s as close to flying like a bird as you´ll get. (Strong stomach required for some of those corkscrew turns, though...)

After heading back to Cordoba and getting a good night´s sleep, I headed for Iguassu...

Coca and Dynamite - The Potosi Silver Mines

After an afternoon in the desert township of Uyuni, I headed to Potosi, where you can book yourself onto a tour of the local silver mines. The first stop was at a local market, to pick up some presents for the miners.


Don´t worry Mum, this is entirely safe and legal...

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Testing the dynamite...

Conditions in the mine were really quite amazing - pretty much everything was done by technology that´s been around since medieval times. Holes for dynamite blasting were chisiled by hand, rocks were lifted in buckets using ropes (I´m pictured doing this), the mining was done with pickaxe and shovel, and the ore and other rocks were removed in wheelbarrows (also pictured). The miners work nearly every day, seemingly powered mostly by coca leaves, and take home about 60 bolivianos (AU$10) a day. The tour was interestingly untouristy and informal.

Welcome to Bolivia - the Uyuni Salt Flats

From Northern Argentina, I headed north across the border into Bolivia. I´d heard all sorts of dodgy things about the country (be really careful at the border crossing, the food is terrible, don´t agree to go anywhere with the police because it could be a kidnapping attempt), but my first few days were really good. I arrived in Tupiza in the morning, and was almost immediately able to get myself onto a four day tour of the Uyuni salt flats that was about to depart. The first three days of the tour covered extremely small and remote Bolivian villages, some ruins, and the lakes, and the last day was of the salt flats themselves. The trip included some of the most amazing sights I´ve seen, plus quite a lot of very plain desert...

Me, Laguna Colorado.

Llama, Laguna Colorado. Llamas are one of the few animals that can survive in the area, and are heavily relied on by the locals for their wool and meat.


Laguna Verde (I´m not sure which of us is pictured).

Nelly (Holland) at one of the other Lagos.

Flamingoes, at another of the lakes.

Flamingoes.

Nelly again... most of the region looks like this.

As a really unexpected bonus, we stopped at an outcrop of weird volcanic rock formations, and I managed to get in a spot of barefoot bouldering. Heaps of opportunities -- I really wished I´d had shoes and more time... climbers, bear that in mind if you ever get to make this trip...

More rocks.

The region features quite a few volcanoes, and also along the way was a field of thermal activity. The geysers, pools, and steaming cauldrons are really noisy - it´s quite a weird place to be. It reminded me of Rotorua a little, except smaller, and there´s no fence to stop you from jumping into the boiling mud if you chose...


Sunrise on the salt flats. The Uyuni Salt flats were formed by a sea that dried up thousands of years ago (and now raised by tectonic activity to over 4000m of elevation). There´s a featureless plain of dried salt stretching as far as the horizon, and then some. It´s a really unique place to see.

The elevation of places like Uyuni and La Paz (the capital) is comparable to those encountered by high altitude mountaineers - the whole of Uyuni is higher than Mount Cook, as is La Paz. This affects people in unpredictable ways - I suffered nothing more than a couple of bad morning headaches, possibly because travelling through Northern Argentina had given me a chance to slowly acclimitise to higher elevations. One of the travellers on our trip, though, spent a couple of nights running to the bathroom to throw up, which is also a common reaction.


Salt flats at dawn.

Isla del Pescado. The cactii here are among the oldest plants in the world - up to 1200 years old and 12m tall. You can also see coral, from when the island was underneath the sea. Weirdly, there is also animal life on the island - you can see strange possum-like creatures called Vischacha flitting around the island.


Isla del Pescado.

Ancient ruins and giant cactii - Quilmes and around

After leaving Ibera, I headed west and into Northern Argentina, stopping briefly in a non-eventful small town called San Peña and arriving after another long bus journey in Taffi de la Valle. The whole stretch of travelling from Missiones to Taffi was interestingly off the beaten track for overseas tourists (Taffi attracts a reasonable number of Argentine tourists), and was a good glimpse into more traditional Argentine life, even though the transportation system was difficult and it took much longer than I´d planned to get through the area. For example, in Missiones we were promised a kitchen at our accommodation, which turned out not to exist. Laden with groceries, we asked to use the kitchen at the camping part next-door. The answer was yes, and we chatted with the occupants, sharing our wine and making fried bananas for everyone while slowly realising that the camping had nothing to do with our own accommodation, and the kitchen was part of a local house.

A genuine gaucho (cowboy) in Taffi. In Ibera on the anaconda hunt, we happened to see cowboys at work lasooing a calf - I´d thought that was only done in rodeos these days...


This is Quilmes, the ruins of a pre-Incan settlement (located near Tafi). The site is interesting, the artwork of the few surviving local descendents is beautiful, and it´s amazing to think that such a big settlement was able to exist in such an arid area.

I loved the big cacti in northern Argentina, just like in deserts from the movies...

A different view of Quilmes...

Extremely dodgy hotel in Tucuman, Northern Argentina, which for some reason I thought was photogenic...

Hunting Anaconda in the Swamp - Reserva Provincial Ibera

After leaving the missions, we headed south to Reserva Provincial Ibera. The area was a little difficult to reach, but was really good to visit, possibly my favourite place in Argentina. It´s a quiet place, with only a few overseas tourists (as yet), all of those whom we met were a good bunch. It´s crawling with interesting wildlife... here are some photos.

This is some people on one of the little boats that are used to explore the lagoon. We were in Ibera a few days, and went out on the lagoon with a guide once during the daytime and once at night, and by ourselves in a canoe once in the evening. There are caymans (kind of like crocodiles), carpinchillos (like giant hampsters), howler monkeys, swamp deer, loads of birds, cool vines that strangle trees, foxes, and more...

Hunting for anacondas on horseback in the swamp (we didn´t find any, just a normal snake, but the ride was good).

A Cayman...

A Carpinchillo (spot it), on a floating island. The floating islands are natural and made of dirt, but only a metre or two thick. Underneath is water, so when you jump up and down, the ground feels spongy, vaguely like a trampoline. It reminded me of a scene from the Life of Pi.


Tamara (professional Tarot reader...) and Paul (both from the US), on the floating island.

Mysteries of the Jungle - Los Cataractas de Iguazu y Los Missiones

After making the long journey back to Mendoza, I recovered there for a few days, catching up with friends from Spanish school, posting my last series of blog bits, and trying to practice a bit of Spanish. Next, I headed back to Cordoba, and did some cool stuff in the surrounding area that I´ll write about when I´ve managed to develop the film and upload the photos (will be under ¨Paragliding with Che, sorry it´s out of order). Then, I took an extended overnight bus ride to one of Argentina´s main attractions, Iguazu falls (the spelling seems to vary a bit). The sheer scale of the falls at Iguazu, and the atmosphere of the surrounding jungle, makes the place quite unforgettable. Puerto Iguazu, the nearby township, was surprisingly pleasant too. Here are some photos:


We headed over to see the falls from the Brazilian side, too (one of the others paying the standard bribe for a day ¨visa¨ for an American visitor to Brazil) which was also worth doing - a different perspective on the falls, and a torrential tropical downpour, which was quite fun too...

Heading south from Iguazu, we paid a visit to the Jesuit ruins in Missiones province. The Jesuits were commissioned by the Catholic Church of Spain to evangelise and concentrate the indigenous people of South America. They set up missions in the jungle to do so, and were successful in protecting them for many years, until the Spanish crown grew tired of their growing power and wealth, and expelled them from the Americas. Leaving some cool ruins behind...

Here´s some detail from one of the buildings...

... and another photo - ancient ruins in the jungle, crawling with giant lizards... there was a nice spooky cemetary too.