With great respect for my way of telling absolutely acronologico, bypassing 'of all the last ten days and I'll tell you about what has happened two days ago. After a thousand
indecision on whether to rent a car or not (the two Argentinian girls - of which I still have to tell you - they were willing to split the fare, but they were already in the Quebrada de Humahuaca), I eventually took a bus from Salta to Abra Pampa, near the border with Bolivia. The trip was amazing, because to go through the Quebrada of night, with a half-moon suggested that the landscape without actually showing it, left almost everything to the imagination. Then slowly you climb up to the Puna, once again, but this time without seeing her. Dug up the iPod for the occasion, and gives me the random play of songs one after the other completely on topic. Then I try to do what I had in mind before you leave, that is, shoot Bjork, Post, and in particular, the lunar landscape (it must be said, at night) of Puna. The marriage is perfect, Bjork would certainly find good here. "Emotional landscapes / they puzzled me / confused." I imagine like in the video for "Army of me" (if I do not remember, here it is ) with that truck that we would be here so much!
Arrive in Abra Pampa, which is very late, and I'm also a bit 'anxious to find everything closed at 11pm. But in this small village lost in the Puna, incredibly there are still stores that are open (though "shops" may not be the exact term) and people on the street. I stop still in the first place that I find a house / restaurant / locutionary very spartan and especially without heating (we are still at 3500 meters). But the weariness of the long journey and the cold were rewarded just go out for a walk after dinner in the sky of Puna there are no stars, but lights, wisps, messages of light from other planets. The moon itself, though in half, as is maximized, as bright as the sun, almost blinding. And all the constellations are there, ever so visible. I remember something similar in a single night of San Lorenzo on a golf course in the Irish countryside, or the base camp of the Gran Sasso. But here, we will be higher, is that pollution (of all types, including light) does not even know what it is, everything is so defined that, she's not so cold, I would be willing to stand there and watch, and wait for the sunrise. What should be the sunrise on the Puna? But you have to gear up a bit 'to fight and night temperatures become polar. Conquistarsela must, as well as over all other sunrises. In my collection DI9 dawn, the sunrise on the Puna will have to wait a bit '.
the morning after a cold night like no other, go out and find myself in Pune that I had not seen coming.
Abra Pampa is a dusty city across sand color. The culture shock that you never get in Argentina, the most European of South American countries, have it here, where all are Indians. Arrive at the terminal with a bus ahead of time, according to the tourist office, had to leave to go to Laguna de los Pozuelos wait for all the tourists were returning from their tours and return. Of course there is no trace of this bus, and find instead that for once was right in the Lonely Planet:
need to take a colectivo scheduled to leave before the guard, from where you have to walk to the lagoon (and at least 8 km walk ... I find that there is also another tourist in the city, a French girl who tells me that what she is taking the only bus that leaves this morning. I'll take it on the fly, but in doing so I did not do either breakfast or water supply. The French girl, whose name is Natacha and she took a six months time after being fired (it's already been a month in Mexico and one in Argentina), tells me that she had half a mind to go to the lagoon, but then the owner of the place where he stayed advised her to get to the last stop of this bus and get back, if his idea was to see a bit 'in Pune without much effort. discover that she too would affect the travel I'm waiting for a week, and we exchange e-mails to see us in Salta and possibly go together. It 's a bit worried that I go alone to the lagoon without water, and in fact I want to do is a bit 'unconscious.
go down, are fully in Pune, around me there is absolutely nothing except the warden's house. I go, there's a girl with the cowboy hat, he explains how to get there and what time the bus back to Abra Pampa. I ask hopefully if there are other tourists (I'm hoping for a step back) but I say I'm the only one today, which is usually the case, one or two a day.
I do pay a very heavy two-liter bottle of water and walked, not before he had photographed the map of the place, you never know were to go back useful. The sun makes itself felt, at 3600 meters. Also because there is no trace of clouds. The lagoon is not seen, and it is not easy to walk in the sun at this altitude, every step is three times harder, but I want to get too much. The absolute silence is broken only by birds that occasionally rise from the bushes. 
All around me, beautiful vicunas in small groups. There's always one that you bring a little 'more, perhaps the male, while others remain a bit' more remote. I try to crept up, but I can get up to about twenty meters, then they rightly wary of being wild vicuña human (being in danger of extinction thanks to him). But move away just a bit 'and then back at me, maybe too curious of the visit. Stoic surplus even if you do not see a point of arrival, with occasional (and stupid, they increase the distance) detours to get closer to the vicuña. On my way there is a house with a lady outside who does chores, and meat and skins hung in the sun, instead of the clothes to dry. 
The dusty road has only traces of the tires of a car, animals (probably vicuña) and no trace of human foot (or shoe if you prefer). keep straight, the vegetation becomes a bit 'greener and the birds grow. When I'm starting to lose hope of arriving, I see something on the horizon, at the end of the road.
it is not clear what it is, but at least it's something. I go forward with renewed optimism, eating chocolate chip cookies, which fortunately I had bought for the trip the day before and had not eaten. I expect something like a center for visitors, I do not know, even a hut. 
Instead what I saw in the distance are the signs: they say you are almost there, ending the "road" and that there is still about a kilometer to the lagoon itself. My smile widens, go further and actually begins to see the water, the reflections of the sun, so many animal species on the beach and in front of me, the birds. The sun is in front, and then unfortunately you can not see well the pink of toucans, but the feeling of having arrived at the end, and to have the lagoon (15000 hectares!) All for me is really exciting.
I've never been a bird-watcher, though I began to understand the reasons for a couple of years ago, reading the beautiful story of Jonathan Franzem, "My problem bird", published in the International New Year 2006 (between ' Another translated by my very good friend Silvia!).
I go, trying not to get too much attention. A little 'hard, being the only living thing that moves on two legs for miles. The ground beneath my feet as I approach changes three times: from the earth to the sun-baked land increasingly muddy.
When I start to notice that the shoes are starting to stay anchored in the ground near a swamp and almost lose it, I wisely stepped back. Meanwhile, the birds are wary of me and get up all in flight to move 500 meters to the right. Watching them take off makes me feel in a National Geographic documentary. 
bad I do not have the same tools to approach unnoticed ... And most of all, shame that I'm missing something very little better than my camera,: never before in my life I wanted a heavy, bulky camera zoom and a serious (or the presence of two or three people who have adapted to the task!) 
But anyhow. But I do understand why this place is not called such and such a park, but Monumento Natural Laguna de los Pozuelos . Because in fact the vision of so many birds that are there placid (and it is not the right season loa) is impressive. 
I try to get close again, but in the meantime I discovered that the lagoon is alive. Not so much because there are birds everywhere, as far as the eye can see. Why has built-in alarm system: when you walk on, let's call it, "beach" the earth beneath you is noisy. E 'own land, because when I stop to take a picture, there's more. Will that silence (except birds) hearing is refined, or will the Pachamama, the Indian god par excellence, the motherland? 
After an hour of chasing Toucans, I discover to my cost: the swampy land is covered with various insects that walk on my fly up and make a noise (really, it's a loud noise, I never could be said that the noise of so many small insects that flap their wings ...), but in the end, tired of my careless walk, I attack in swarms. Obviously I, who have faced crossing the Puna with 400 cl of water (apart from the providential loan rangers but did not want to use if not wet, because until now I have miraculously avoided my favorite travel sickness, the curse of Montezuma), a bit 'of biscuits and some biscuits, without a shred of a hat or sunscreen, without binoculars, I had not even brought anything against insects, because stupidly I did not think the presence of insects in the lagoon ...
I walk away with difficulty by the swarm of insects incattiviti, and I try to approach the group of animals, "stranded." From a distance, there are some who seem to brown bears, but of course can not be and I approach to control.
fact are guanacos, cousins \u200b\u200bof the funny and the most elegant vicunas nice blade. I walk over to one that looks at me astonished for a while before walking away. Then I look at the time and I understand that it's time to go, if I want to catch the last colectivo. 
The return is of course more difficult, not having the objective of the lagoon (but we say that the objective of taking the last colectivo stuff was not so much). I am surprised to find in my own footsteps, as if to confirm that, at least for now, at least for one day, the lagoon is my thing. 
Fatigue increases exponentially, because in fact I have never stopped (perhaps more so, he who hesitates is lost) and now i have so many kilometers. I get to say goodbye to the only blade in the area, approaching him curiously and then starts posing even when he shot the photo, choosing his profile clearly better ... begin to doubt my strength when I see in the distance remaining to the guard house and I reassured. But I see also two buses that go by and I hope they are not mine. It 'amazing how in Pune you can see everything from a great distance, and in particular vehicles. Either because you hear them in the extraordinary acoustics of the plateau (perhaps also due to the silence that is). Either because you see them, or rather see the cloud of dust rise up running on dirt roads (we have an example in the photo of the blade). You see them from miles away.
In the end, about twenty miles after starting, I return to the starting point. But it's over.
I have come in possession of more than half an hour early, as indicated by the rangers, but of course the bus arrives an hour late. The waiting, still, under the hot sun, is the worst part. Also because the terror that the bus has already gone inexplicably increases with every passing minute. I'm burning and I take refuge under the only bridge there. Both the bus when the feel is still distant. From time to time I look, even for see in the distance if they pass machines to hitchhike, but pass all the other way.
the end arrives, heralded by a huge cloud of dust, is an older, dilapidated buses that you can not, and within full of dust that enters through the windows, but I greet you as if it were manna from heaven, and salvation .
I've done it!
I've done it.
Almost.
I just feel fit, I'm burning and I have a splitting headache. But I'm getting back to civilization (well, 'more or less ...), and it was like climbing a mountain. A mountain flat.
Around me the Puna is no longer so afraid, from inside the colectivo. And more and more you think you're on roof of the world. I mean, the highest point, not what is the roof of the world, by definition, the Himalayas. But it seems plain that you really a roof, as if it were under the real world, as if, through some complicated filtering system, the sun and stars and all pass through this and come in endless plateau, where there is the world that we are all used to know.
Arrive in Abra Pampa and take another bus to return back down the Puna in the Quebrada de Humahuaca. I stop just to Humahuaca, nell'hostal half where we had an appointment with the girls from Argentina, because tomorrow I expect the trip to Iruya.
Just before I look in the room and I understand that they are unconscious: are completely red from the scalp. I take a refreshing shower, and despite a high fever I feel the same I go for a walk, eat, take an aspirin and go to bed, ready for more amazing adventures.
For today I won on the Puna. Even if I were marks on him. But I know that is not the last time we meet, with this magical place that has such a hold on me.
If not for the excursion to Tolar Grande, a few days, it will be again, but I and the Puna we meet again.
And I hope I win again.
0 comments:
Post a Comment