SALTA

Friends and rellies all, feels like we are on the last leg of this trip, south of Rio. We have bought our bus tickets for the Friday afternoon - overnight - to Clorinda, on the Argentine/Paraguay border, and Saturday morning should arrive in Asuncion, capital of Paraguay. Meanwhile we are having a rest day here in Salta after most of yesterday being in a minibus tour to Cafayate, through Quebrada de Conchas. That is an enormous gorge, 72km long and 1,500mt in the highest places. A sort of giant Avon Gorge I thought, and Sue, a mini Grand Canyon. The red of the great cliffs was the predominant colour, though there was plenty of green too from trees and shrubs and some very tall cactus plants like the ones you see in pics of the Mexican desert. There are many extraordinary shapes in the cliffs, formed by the action of wind and water over a period of hundreds of millions of years. It was all originally a part of the Pacific Ocean and shell fossils from that period are to be found in the river bed flowing through the gorge. This has given the river its name in this place, of Rio de las Conchas. This river is the longest in Argentina and changes its name several times in the early stages before becoming the Rio Parana and then Rio de la Plata (River Plate) and entering the Atlantic by Buenos Aires. We stopped a number of times to see better and take photos of the most impressive of the interesting shapes. One of these known as the Anfiteatro is a great hollowed out arena, very high on all sides and with incredible natural acoustics. The New York Philharmonic orchestra played in there some time ago, we were told.
In the gorge we met with an old man and his llama - photo opp! Also saw lots of goats clambering about. Earlier we had stopped at a small goat farm for morning coffee, where we saw the little cabritos, their mums being milked, and a big horned billy. I had a piece of delicious goat cheesecake with orange. Tomorrow its horseback riding for the day. Sue will be adding her own stylee notes later........