A Walk Through A Valley

By the time I woke up it was sunday afternoon and it dawned on me that I only had one more day to make it over to El Parque Nacional de Los Quijades. Somehow I had managed to spend the last two nights staying up till all hours and partying with my newly found rag-tag band of Argentinean hooligans. And this meant that for the last two days, making the early morning excursion to the park was not an option.

But seeing as it was sunday, everyone was heading back to where they came this afternoon. I was guaranteed a nice quiet evening. They all had work or school monday morning, and luckily, my classes don´t start till tuesday, so I had one more day left. And I was convinced tomorrow was my day to head to the park. But I had managed to learn that one of the aparent reasons that not a lot of tourists come to San Luis is because there just isn´t a lot of infrastructure for tourism.

For example, in order to get to El Parque Nacional de Quijades from San Luis, one needs to take the solitary bus towards San Jose which leaves at 8 AM. This drops you off on the side of the road about 6 km from the park entrance, which leaves you with a little walk before you get to the park. Then you have to hope to be able to find a guide in the park itself, or you could chance treking through the desolate rock valley yourself, but everyone seemed to advise against that. Getting back is the tricky part, since there is no bus service. That means you hope you find someone at the park who is making the 130 KM ride back to San Luis or just hitchhike.

No it didn´t sound like the perfect setup, but I was game. I did come all the way to San Luis aftrer all for some reason. Charlie and Michie saw me off at the bus station where I caught a ride to Porto de los Funes, for a little day-trip. It was sad to say goodbye to those two, especially knowing that I could never bring myself to hang out with them again. Good times were had that won´t soon be forgotten, no matter how hard I try.

The hike through in Porta de los Funes was out towards a peak set atop a series of rolling hills that has a fantastic vantage point overlooking the flatness of Las Pampas, they called it Salta de las Monedas. They say on a clear day you can see all the way to the Andes, but today was not such a day. The hike was relatively easy and it was nice just to have some quiet time alone. I tend to forget how much I value my quiet time until I go without it for a while.

By the time I made it back to the hostel all the party kids had left for home. But in their place I ran into a group of three travellers also looking to head to the park tomorrow. This was fantastic news, because it meant we could all split the cost of a guide and transportation, and not have to worry about hitchhiking tomorrow. I made friends quickly and we all went to dinner to figure out some plans for tomorrow.

Our guide Pablo met us at the hostel early the next morning and pretty soon we pilled into his car and were off! It´s an amazingly different experience hanging out with a group of 30 year nature enthusiasts rather than 20 something party kids. We actually talked about history and politics, I could understand their spanish, mostly because they would slow down and explain stuff to me. I guess I´m just getting too old to constantly party like a mad-man, oh well I suppose I always knew that day would come.

The park itself was amazingly gorgeous. If I´d ever been to Bryce Canyon I´d describe Los Quijades as the Argentinean version, but since I haven´t I´ll just say it´s one of a kind. Beautiful limestone canyons and dazzling rock-formations seemed to just carry on, one after the other. As we started our hike through the valley, we stumbled upon a lost couple already looking for help. Thus we added two more to our group and headed out.

It was hot in the valley and I found it difficult to believe that any form of life survived out here, even through we heard the wolves and saw the condors. Pablo pointed out the more interesting formations and we all debated what we thought they looked like. We wandered through that valley for a couple of hours until the sun was starting to set. It was quiet and still in the valley but we started to asend back towards the entrance the winds nearly took us off our feet, a couple of times.

We just barely made it to lookout we started from as the last rays of sunlight were vanishing behind the mountains. As I watched the sky light up I thought to myself I came amazingly close to missing this, what a shame that would have been. Sometimes when you just live in the moment, you forget to think about finding the next moment. It´s just my opinion, I may be right or wrong, but I think you can find just about whatever you´re looking for at Los Quijades at sundown.