Where am I?
It's true...when I took this picture, I was kind of lost. But that's not why I was feeling disoriented.
Here we are on the other side of the world -- I mean waaaay on the other side of the world -- and it feels like the Napa Valley. Sunlight filtering through leaves, roses blooming in people's yards, a quiet drive on a two-lane highway...
It's like I'm looking at the reflection of the place I'm from reflected across the equator.Kind of eerie to know there's a place so similar to your own upside down on the other side of the globe.
Well, except that it isn't a perfect reflection. Salta, Argentina is latitude 24°48' S while Napa is 38°29'N. That's a big difference.
So what's 24° N? Whoa, that's like San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico (24°7'N).
Interesting, because this is Salta too (the Calchaqui Valley to be specific):
Salta is both the name of one of Argentina's 23 provinces and of the capital city within that province.
The whole time we were in Salta last week, I was feeling these funny waves of familiarity and foreign-ness.
One of the things Salta is famous for is folk music (do click here -- it's beautiful). And somehow it seemed like there was music everywhere, sweet Andean-sounding songs lilting softly around our breakfast table, over the loudspeaker at the supermarket, from cafes...and then, as I was walking through the streets of the tiny town of Cafayate I heard folk music drifting from behind the corrugated metal wall of a warehouse...and then I heard a German voice doing some kind of beat poetry over the music and realized it was some kind of trip-hop mixup of Andean music by German musicians!
It's beautiful and eerie here.
Things that seem old or basic and primitive are mixed in with startlingly new things. And it's not always clear whether it is the elemental or rustic becoming modern or whether people are letting modern things fall away as they go back to their roots.
At the Sayta Cabalgatas ranch in Chicoana, the eccentric and memorable proprietor Enrique told us how he first left his home of Patagonia, went on to work in the oil industry, lived in Texas, was a workaholic, lost his wife to an accident, and decided to make a major change in his life...so he went back to his roots. Well to the country anyway, but not to Patagonia (because the "hijue-puta wind" makes it impossible to do anything). But to Salta, where the whether is warm, you can sit under big shady trees drinking wine and grilling on the asador with friends.
In this picture: two great young women (one from Switzerland, the other from Canada) interning at the ranch, living like gauchos, and a really nice Brazilian also drawn to the romance of the gaucho lifestyle.
After refilling my wine glass for the nth time, Enrique asked me, "So what is *your* life project?"
In my brief experience with Argentines, the conversation often turns to life philosophy and relationships ;-)
But the point is, Salta holds a special place in people's minds. It's easy to be drawn in by Salta, but somehow difficult to really reach her.
Whenever I told anyone in Buenos Aires I was coming to Salta, they would sigh and say, "Salta la linda" (trans. Salta the pretty one).
Salta, pretty and remote, attracts not only Swiss adventure-seekers and Patagonian ex-oilmen, but also US-born investor Doug Casey. Others probably know more about Casey than I do, but as far as I understand, he's both a mining and metals expert and a pretty hard-core libertarian who has outspokenly predicted the economic demise of the USA.
Casey has also apparently traveled to 175 countries and lived in 12 of them. His response to the oncoming disaster in the US has been to create an enormous development in Cafayate, Argentina (in Salta province) in partnership with Juan Esteban Romero, an Argentine businessman and son of Juan Carlos Romero, governor of Salta from 1995-2007.
My sweetheart doesn't agree with all of Casey's doomsday predictions, but he does see merit in the notion that people who are able to afford to, should own a home in the countryside that they could retreat to in case world events make their normal residence suddenly unattractive. So, since we're traveling the world looking for places to live too, we decided to go have a look at La Estancia de Cafayate.
It's this vast, luxurious, remote complex with an enormous golf course at the heart of it. But also a polo field (Argentines love polo), sand dunes, and a vineyard that is supposedly part of the financial design of the community. Oh, and there's going to be a big hotel too and eventually a little marketplace...
What was interesting to us was that, although much of La Estancia is already sold (purportedly 29 countries represented), there were only a handful of houses actually built...
When you see how houses are built in Salta, however, it seems like a minor miracle that so many buildings already exist at La Estancia!
Construction equipment, it seems, is in short supply. Instead, for those who can afford it, there are skilled craftsmen, mostly masons, who build houses from the ground up with their hands. It's all "wet construction." Take a look at this stone and tile work. It makes me think of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf (if the American economy huffs and puffs, it's not going to blow this house down!).
This kind of stonework is a regional tradition. Earlier in our trip, I noticed a beautiful dam, which appeared to be constructed entirely by hand-fitting stones (without mortar?)...
This sense of solidness will be one of my lasting impressions of Salta. A sense of unhurried thoroughness and quality.
This sensibility brought to the preparation of our breakfast everyday at the Villa Vicuña in Cafayate was a real pleasure for me. The table linens were sparkling white, the bread basket offered up on hand-crocheted lace, coffee and hot milk poured by hand to my indication of proportion. A level of service and attention to detail I would only have expected from a five-star hotel.
So...how was the food? ;-)
Weeeelll...let's just say that, while I saw E genuinely happy for the first time on this trip watching the sun set and listening to birdsong in Cafayate, he was nonetheless still counting the days to our departure from Argentina.
Which is not to say there isn't some good food in Salta. (Salta is actually known within Argentina for having great regional cuisine.) But I would say it's pretty limited. Nevertheless, I discovered some new gastronomic treats that I will carry in my memory banks for the rest of my life.
To start off with, Salta -- and in particular Cafayate -- specializes in the variety of white wine called Torrontes. Because I have a sensitive snout, this was a real pleasure for me. The bouquet of the wine smells distinctively of orange blossoms. But the actual flavor is much drier. I soon found myself craving the combination of scent and flavor. Here we are enjoying a glass of La Estancia's own (very nice!) Torrontes produced by La Porvenir Bodega.
Wine aside, Salta is perhaps most famous gastronomically for its empanadas. As they appeared over and over (and over) again on menus, I started grumbling to E, "Empanadas are not a cuisine!"
BUT the truth is that they were really yum. Surprisingly small, with a delicate, thin skin toasted brown in places, they are unwaveringly filled with the same four, very flavorful fillings: charqui (salted, dried meat), choclo (sweet corn) with cheese, knife-cut steak, and chicken. The tastiest I had were made to order for me at El Chueco in Salta city center (not far from Doña Salta).
One other Salteñan treat I found very yummy was locro. Actually, I should refer to locro as an Andean treat because versions of it are eaten across Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia. It's basically a sunny, soul-satisfying stew of beans, corn, pumpkin, pork, bacon, veal, and a lot of other tasty ingredients. You can see how to make the Argentine bicentennial locro recipe here. I had a very nice version at El Rancho in Cafayate.
It's these flavors, the flowering trees, the abundant bird song, and the midnight dog serenades that I will remember about Salta ;-)
And if I could ever drag E back, I would love to venture further out over the rocky roads to remote Colome where the Hess family has a beautiful organic winery and a museum devoted to one of my favorite artists, James Turrell.
I would also try to not get lost again on my way to the Cerro de Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colors) in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, which is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site not only because it's beautiful, but because it "has been used over the past 10,000 years as a crucial passage for the transport of people and ideas from the high Andean lands to the plains."
So if *you* go to Argentina, I highly recommend that you spend less time in Buenos Aires and more time in Salta!
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