Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We arrive at our hostel in San Juan to find that there are only 3 other people staying, a random little hostel the guy tells us to turn the showers on now, (all 3 of them) and have a cup of tea, that way once we are ready the water will be hot. Strange but it works, so feeling more refreshed we head out in search of food and call it an early night.
We are up 6am to catch our bus to Valle Fertil and the guy is running around trying to make us breakfast before we leave, 10 out of 10 for trying but the hostel definitely won't appear in our top 5! Anyhow, we have only got a few hours down the road and our bus breaks down. Usefully though, we have managed to stop in a place with a bit of history and a local on the bus (Lucas) gives us his broken english/spanish rendition! I have since looked it up and the story of the place is as follows:- according to legend Deolinda Correa trailed her conscript husband on foot through the desert during the civil wars of the 1840's, before dying of thirst, hunger, and exhaustion and passing muleteers found her infact son still alive at her breast. The shrine to her in Difunta Correa (the town we broke down in) has lots of devoted followers, namely truck drivers who actually leave bottles of water here to quench her thirst. Of all of the places we could have broken down, they helpfully chose one with a story. Anyhow the bus companies over here further impressed us by getting a new bus to us within the hour and we were again off on our merry way. After me legging down the road to retrieve Jo (who had gone walk about) and Sharon sitting up the front of the bus, directing it to follow me so the bus wouldn't leave without us all!
On arrival in Valle Fertil, we realise we are too late for tours of the lunar park today (the whole reason we came) so we have to get creative. We end up paying for a private tour with the guy that picked us up to take us to our hostel and a young boy Noel that worked in the hostel - a simple bribe of cash and they happily left their day jobs to show us around. One an ex guide of the park, Alexandro (now our driver) and the other fantastic at speaking English (Noel, 18 years old now our guide), they make a fantastic combo!!
We head off in our fancy car, to the Unesco world heritage site that only warrants a paragraph in the lonely planet. They say: a desert valley between mountain ranges, the intermittent waters of Rio Ischigualasto have exposed triassic fossils and dinosaur bones 180 mil years old and carved distinct shapes in the monochrome clays, red sandstone and volcanic ash. I say it was amazing and needs more coverage, although it did mean we were the only people in the park and for a few hours it was just us admiring its' beauty - which makes a nice change from a lot of tourist areas and the coach tours!
So my description of the lunar park: In parts it was like being on the moon (as I guess the name would suggest), there were great masses of land covered in cacti, loads of great stone formations, what I called the malteser desert (iron ore magnetic boulders that had all come to rest in the same place), salt flats and red/orange coloured mountains. It was so diverse and so remote, it didn't seem real. It was the site of the find of the most primative dinosaur, which we found out at the museum at the end, in fact they still uncover loads of fossils and bones today as 2 tectonic plates previously collided and overlapped, protected this big expanse of land for millions of year from the elements. Therefore today the history is still very much intact and probably goes along way to describing the landscape! We got some great photos, especially our jumping shots infront of the much photographed Submarino (aptly named as it looks like a submarine). We had such a great day that we tipped both of the boys 10 pounds, they probably thought all of their Christmas' had come at once!! but it was well worth it.
The next day, as if it could get any better, with a day to kill until our next available bus out we opt for a spot of horse riding as suggested by Noel. Another amazing day, the 3 of us and dog (Shazza and I walked Jo to the bs station at 3am last night for her bus back to Santiago) head out to the cactus filled valleys and mountains that surround Valle Fertil. Our dog apparently for protection from the ridiculous amount of dogs that live here (both stray and owned, about 3 per house, a real problem here) gets attacked lots and looks really scared bless him!! and at one point our horses legged it away from a particularly scary looking dog and Shazza and I momentarily thought we had entered into the Grand National and clung on for dear life! I could have riden through the countryside for days and not got bored, we stopped at a mirror lake, took a packed lunch and almost made a whole day of it. Very peaceful and relaxing. I'm not sure what I expected from Argentina, but it wasn't this, I Love it! It is truly a beautiful country. I am beginning to sound like a broken record but the people are so friendly and will do anything for you, I am starting to think perhaps that the English are just rude and miserable in comparison to just about any other nation!
- comments