Backpacking South America

It is hard to capture the beauty and sheer impressiveness of Machu Picchu in photos. Upon entering the site, we were instantly overwhelmed with the structures and the ability of the Incas to tame the mountain. Centered where the two portions of the Andes meet the Amazon, located on top of a mountain, it is hard to imagine so much foresight and effort going into building a city.

The stone structures of the temple do not use any mortar. The Inca’s carved the granite so all the pieces fit together perfectly. Most of the structure remains intact without significant restoration, even though it was built over 500 years ago and abandoned for hundreds of years thereafter.

An optional side trip from within the Machu Picchu site is to hike Waynapicchu and Huaynapicchu. They have 400 permits available each day to hike the mountain. The trick is, they are first come first serve. We arrived at the park gate around 6:45 and we got tickets 394 and 395 – only 7 were left!

After leaving our dear friend’s at the Estancia, we settled into Salta, for what was supposed to be a week of catching up on the blog, reviewing Spanish, and enjoying the city.

Over the weekend, we took one big excursion into the puna, the high altitude areas north and west of Salta.  We followed the route of the Tren de las Nubes, visited Salinas Grandes and took some great photos.

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Then crossed a pass at 4170 meters above sea level.  On our way day, we visited Pumamarca and the Quebrada de Huamaca.

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The city has a very unique charm, with its large colonial buildings and churches.  The city really comes alive at night with people and the buildings are lit up.

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Unfortunately, our stay in Salta coincided with a heatwave and everyday was right around 100 degrees.  We did our best to soldier on, but it is amazing how heat can really keep you down.   We typically tried to get out in the morning to walk around, then found a place to retreat for the afternoon – usually the hostel or a café (AC and wifi).

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The benefit of global warming – winter days that are 35 degrees above the normal temperature.

Our second weekend in Buenos Aires was about 40 degrees warmer than the first. Gone were the sweatshirts, long underwear and gloves. It was time to enjoy summer.

We decided to visit Tigre, a summertime hotspot for porteños. Just a short train ride from the city, Tigre is sometimes called the Venice of Argentina by locals. While that is disputable, it is pretty nice.

During peak season (or unseasonably warm winter days), people flee the city for the quaint, but busy, town of Tigre. There is a small amusement park, casino, art museum and numerous outdoor activities.

Tigre is where a small part of the Delta divides into many canals that can been enjoyed by a peaceful boat ride along the river. For the locals, it´s their mode of transportation to their cottage. For tourists, they use the boats to take them to their summer rentals or upriver to a restaurant or park for a day-long picnic and parrilla (barbeque with lots and lots and lots of meat).

We started our trip to Tigre early Saturday morning.