A Tuesday Hike Trek Tramp, Tafí

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I’m in Tafí del Valle, a pueblo in foothills of the Tucumán province, Northern Argentina. I set out for my mini-hike, after filling my water bottle and eating a couple of bananas and tangerines that I pick up at a fruit stand and use a handful of the water to wash my hands after peeling the tangerines. I look around, the air is dry and the landscape barren. Immediately hearing gravel under my feet is liberating, as if there is nothing better in the world I could be doing. The valley slopes below the higher I ascend, some trees and casitas scattered about. Half-way up I take a leak, all the more alleviating with miles of open space in front of me, all the way to the mountains in the great distance, dark peaks of the sacred Andes protruding into the cloudless-blue above.

At the top I lay down and experience a novel sensation, above me is only sky. Sky, sky, sky and nothing else in the periphery of my vision. No buildings or trees, mountains or people. Just a light caressing breeze, the warm sun shining down on me, and blue. I close my eyes and pleasant thoughts drift. When I open my eyes some minutes later I perch up and the great gaping valley greets me. The valley feels vacant, there is a great absence of noise. Then, I pick up on some. The rustling of brush, the faint crow of a mighty rooster, what may be a propeller-plane, invisible, far-off somewhere. I decide to add to my own soundtrack and persist with the crunching gravel beneath me, the water slapping against the inside of the bottle, now dusty from the dirt I’ve kicked up. I walk around the mini-cordónes, a cactus native to the region, some aspire immodestly and reach fifteen feet in height.

I begin descending with the glorious valley encompassing the whole of my vision. I look for a way down the backside, it’s steep and there’s no defined trail. I spot some dried-up horse dung and figure if they could make it down I’ll be alright. My foot-holds give way a couple of times causing me to slide, but I come out fine, a few scratches from the brush on my shins. A hare races past, hopping in a hurry. There’s a lot of loose stones, quartz and what I think is limestone. At the base there’s a carcass. A horse picked clean to the bone. Two hoofs remain, another leg is twenty feet away, hide and bone. Walking towards the creek I spot the fourth hoof. If I follow the water I should be back in town soon. I pass a farm with chickens and a lamb, cows and a dog, pigs in a blanket. No wait, actually they’re in mud.

In town I buy up some vegetables and herbs, pasta, tomato paste, three eggs, and I’m going to cook up a big meal and eat it on the thematically-rustic rooftop terrace, and afterwards I’ll buy a slice of cake from next door and boil up some spiced black tea and start my new book. The tea I’m informed, bless the boardroom brainstorm that went down in Oregon, is “In the style of the hill-dwellers of the Himalayas”. When the sun’s all down I’ll head for my room and light my travel candle and think about the day, if I get restless maybe I’ll go for a walk in the town.

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