Slivovice & Hagelslag: December 2009

Fog rolls across the high plains, pressing up against the rocky heights, meshing with the clouds, rain and unyielding viento which pound down onto los altos cumbres. Sipping bitter but comforting yerba mate, I watch as the weather worsens and drenches the stone maze of ancient towers from which we sped down only some hours ago hoping to evade the weather and make it to a small shop down on the plain stretching out below two hours hike away from our camp high up in los gigantes. We wait all afternoon because there is only one bus a day out here traveling the lone dirt road that winds its way from Tanti to Villa Dolores. We drink some wine and eat ham and cheese sandwiches, listening to the wind howl and trying to distinguish the groan of the bus far out in the fog which has now enshrouded everything. We can no longer see the rocks amongst which we've passed the last four days.

The bus comes and it is raining. It is forty five minutes late but that is normal in this weather and on this road. We wait outside of the bus while the passengers disembark to use the toilet and buy snacks for the remainder of their journey. Children run up and down the length of the bus, hiding from one another amongst the seats while their parents pass a little metal mate cup back and forth. We load our things in the back of the bus and sit down. The driver gets back on and shouts out "Hay mas?" Another passenger boarding responds, "creo que no" and so the driver nods his head, honks the horn, and steps on the gas. I press play and El Remolon's pulsating digital cumbia blasts into my ears. Careening down the dirt, well, now mud road, the bus hits bumps and all the passengers fly into the air. The children laugh and everyone else hangs on as we fly down towards Tanti, some forty kilometers away. Edges of cliffs, mud, some sliding and all the while the driver chats happily with a friend who sits in the first row of seats next to him. It has been a good weekend.

We learned of some climbing in a stretch of granite domes and towers way out of town and decided to check it out. Taking the bus early in the morning from Cordoba, we arrived and began the long hike from the 'main' road along a side road past a house and a man slaughtering a pig which hung from it's legs in a tree, and onward up a small trail leading higher and higher into the mountains. Eventually finding a nice place to camp a ways above the trail on a little rock tower overlooking the river way down below on one side, but with easy access to pump water, we set up shop and went to explore the area. I'd heard that people have been lost in this area when fog rolls in unexpectedly (though the frequency which this occurs would lead one to believe that it should be anything but unexpected) but now seeing the truly wild country we've journeyed to, I understand. Vague paths wind their way through high brush, up incredibly steep hillsides studded with massive boulders and rock towers reaching a few hundred feet at their highest. We boulder a little and go back to camp where we cook and watch the sunset reflecting orange and red against the rocks that surround us.

Camp at Lost Gigantes

We wake up in the morning to somewhat frantic sounding shouts and go outside to eat breakfast while watching the source of the yelling: two guys climbing a nearby face with runouts stretching to some twenty feet between bolts. The leader, understandably, seems a little stressed. We have mate and eat cereal with powdered milk, pump water, and pack our climbing gear and supplies for a day up in the rocks. The trail exits our small valley steeply and soon we've gained some eight hundred feet of elevation and find ourselves moving upwards through a passage of rock walls on both sides coated in neon green lichen. The sky is a deep blue and the sun beats down unrelentingly. It is is already getting hot, but a constant light wind keeps us cool. We hike until we reach a rock called the Gorilla and go to the backside of it where an abundance of routes stretch up it's walls and look down a long valley stretching all the way to the plains below. We have an awesome day of climbing and head back down late in the afternoon, checking out some routes up one of the big domes for possible climbing for the next morning. If all goes nicely, we plan to climb a route up the center of the dome all the way to its summit three hundred feet above floor of the vallecito, literally, "little valley. As we go to sleep the skies are clear and we can see Cordoba far down in the distance, 80 km away.

Climbing at Los Gigantes

Naturally, all does not go according to plan. I wake up in the early morning hours to the sound of rain pounding down on the tent and all around. The wind threatens to pick us up and throw us down the valley but there is nothing to do so I go back to sleep. When we wake up later in the morning it stills rains in off and on spurts of manic intensity followed by a light, teasing caress. Even when it stops and we emerge from the tent, the rock is too wet to climb. Being a very crumbly composition of granite, it is unlikely that it will dry (assuming that the rain does not begin again) enough to climb today. Instead we spend the day hiking and exploring the many passages winding in every direction up and down the mountain. It's a little disappointing but we've become used to it. The previous week we spent five days climbing and camping at another area up in the mountains and encountered rain nearly every day. Everyone says it is very unusual this time of year but from what I've seen, it seems to be standard. The last morning we packed up early while the tent was dry and raced down from the mountains all the way to a small shop to wait out the impending weather and the arrival of the bus, mentioned above, later in the day.

We're back in Cordoba now and taking care of some paperwork before leaving on Friday. We will take a twenty hour bus North to Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian border before going to Buenos Aires to spend Christmas with a few new friends. Ah, and more news, we've been hired for a great sounding teaching job in South Korea, so in late February we will move to Milyang for the next year.

Happy Holidays to everyone, whatever it is you do or however (if at all) you celebrate!