{"id":1076,"date":"2010-04-27T18:36:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T23:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2012-05-29T18:07:11","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T23:07:11","slug":"the-salta-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/the-salta-region\/","title":{"rendered":"The Salta Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The second-to-last province I&#8217;m riding through in NW-Argentina is Salta. The capital Salta, a city of about 500.000 people, has a lot to offer and hence attracts a lot of tourists. During the approach from the South, after the town of Cafayate, I already experienced some great landscape at the Quebrada de Las Conchas.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/QuebradaAfterCafayate.JPG\" alt=\"Riding in the Quebrada after leaving Cafayate headed for Salta on Ruta 68\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/QuebradaAfterCafayate2.JPG\" alt=\"The road follows a meandering river, with beautiful red sandstone formations along the way\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>After 11 days of nonstop riding from Mendoza I decided to spend the weekend resting in Salta. Arriving in the province brought the first cloudy and cool weather since I left Bariloche in late February some 2 months ago. A change in weather had dropped the temperatures in Salta by 15C and signalled the arrival of fall. <\/p>\n<p>After a rest-day on Saturday spent with logistics I decided to undertake a day-trip on Sunday by bus to Cachi. The very scenic road climbs 2000m over a 3400m high pass, literally above the clouds.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/Road2Cachi.JPG\" alt=\"The road from Salta (El Carril) to Cachi climbs over a 3400m pass, top section gravel.\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Once over the top the landscape and the microclimate change dramatically. Arid plains and plenty of candelabra cacti present themselves in the National Park &#8220;Los Cardones&#8221;. The view opens up of the valley with the nice little town of Cachi and the huge Nevado de Cachi (6720m) towering behind.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/NevadoCachiAndCacti.JPG\" alt=\"In the Los Cardones NP with Nevado de Cachi in the background\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Back after a very long day I got to enjoy Salta by night, with sights like the splendidly illuminated Cathedral on the central Plaza 9 de Julio.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/SaltaCathedral.JPG\" alt=\"Cathedral in Salta by night\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I spent an extra rest and logistics day on Monday. In the late afternoon I walked 1072 stone steps up to the Cerro San Bernardo, from where you have a great view of the city. In the fading light I took this picture of Salta:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/SaltaFromCerroSanBernardo.JPG\" alt=\"Salta from the viewing platform on Cerro San Bernardo some 250m above the city\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The next day I continued North towards the province of Jujuy. I stopped for brunch in the idyllic little town of La Caldera. A stop at the beautiful Hosteria La Caldera is a must for every cyclist (or other tourist for that matter).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/HosteriaLaCaldera.JPG\" alt=\"Hosteria La Caldera\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The road (Ruta 9) then climbs over a 1600m high saddle and descends into a lush cloud forest towards the reservoirs created by the Dique de Cienaga. This was one of the finest roads I have cycled in Argentina &#8211; no, make that &#8220;I have ever cycled on&#8221;! Just fabulous, smooth paved road, slight downhill, no traffic, extremely winding road, and lush rainforest all around!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Salta\/Ruta9ToJujuy.JPG\" alt=\"Rainforest along Ruta 9 between La Caldera and Jujuy\"  width=\"600\" height=\"336\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m greatly enjoying this much green prior to heading up to the Altiplano and Bolivia in the next couple of days&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second-to-last province I&#8217;m riding through in NW-Argentina is Salta. The capital Salta, a city of about 500.000 people, has a lot to offer and hence attracts a lot of tourists. During the approach from the South, after the town of Cafayate, I already experienced some great landscape at the Quebrada de Las Conchas. After [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tlausser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}