Argentina at Last

On one of the last days in Calama, we took a micro to the “cementario” on the outskirts of town.  I had not yet been so aware of the magnitude of the Atacama Desert; it was the sort of scene that overwhelms one with its inconceivable emptiness.  We walked through the cemetery, skirting around a funeral, and into a plain full of low bushes.  Lizards darted around, sometimes stopping to look at me, twitching their heads up and down.  As we walked along an old barbed wire fence, I heard a screeching cry and looked up to a small owl sitting on one of the fence posts ahead.  It had a bright white, warlike face, and soon went flying away into the adjacent field.  On the way out of the cemetery, I saw people sitting in front of the raised, concrete tombs of their family members, which looked like a number of square, glass-fronted dioramas stacked on top of each other.  One man held his hand out to the tomb for a moment and then walked off. 

Before going back to town, we sat at a little flower stand next to the road and drank the national soda, Bilz.  It was a great relief to get out of the dirty and hectic center, where it seems we were daily assaulted by the sight of stray dogs acting on their amorous desires, among other unsavory things.  The next morning, after being forced to pay more than we owed because of the innkeeper’s mathematical error, we got on the bus to Salta, Argentina.  I was very glad to leave.

The ride was obscenely beautiful.  At first, it seemed no different from any of the other recent rides.  The desert stretched on and on.  Plumes of smoke from the mines loomed in the distance.  The landscape was a seemingly endless, lifeless plain.  A few hours in, though, we started climbing in thick fog, and when it cleared, the scenery had completely changed.  There were lakes and beautiful snow-capped mountains in the distance.  We went past small herds of vicuñas and alpacas.  The stone of the mountains blazed blue and red.  There was the same sort of vast emptiness, but it was somehow much more alive.  We rode through salt flats that reflected the beautiful clouds, and past canyons cut in painted rock.

Around 10 PM at night, we arrived in Salta.  It was hot and humid as we walked through the night streets to the hostel.  After putting our bags in the room, we walked out into the city, which was still bustling at what must have been midnight or later.  Beautiful, slightly dilapidated buildings towered up all around us.  Intimidatingly attractive people sat in outdoor cafés and assessed us as we walked by.  I am glad to be in Argentina.