After a
reasonable night in Purmamarca, we headed south to Salta for a
couple of days of exploring the city before flying onward to
Buenos Aires. When we left Purmamarca, the light was
illuminating the colorful cliffs of the Quebrada Humahuaca and
showing off the brightly colored strata.
The photos below are what we saw.
The view
from the deck at our hotel of the multi-colored hills.
In
Purmamarca, we spotted this nice painting on the walls of the
pueblo.
Further
south into the quebrada the hills gave us a great view.
We
traveled half of the day to get to Salta. We arrived after
noon and the traffic was insane; worse than any I have ever
seen. Aggressive drivers, tons of motos, folks running
through intersections. Very intense. Kathleen had
found us a nice room at the Alejandro I hotel. We relaxed
for the afternoon and the following morning we headed out to
explore the city a bit. We got a taxi to take us to the
top of a local mountain where there was a nice view. After
the taxi discharged us at the top of the hill, we spotted this
sun dial.
The top
of the mountain had a good view of the surrounding
valleys. To the south was a hill filled with radio towers.
The top
of the mountain was a city park that had multiple viewpoints and
waterfalls.
The
waterfalls were synthetic, but nicely done. The sound of
running water was very pleasing.
Salta is
a big city, the second largest in Argentina. It filled the
valley below.
The city continued on to the north as well.
Kathleen
was having fun.
In the
park I spotted this funky tree with sharp spikes on the trunk.
The top
of the mountain is serviced by a tram although we took a taxi up
instead due to a miscommunication with the taxi driver.
Given that, we elected to take the tram down.
From the
tram car we got a different view of the north side of Salta.
At the
base station we could see the running gear that powers the
tram. The red housing is a transmission with the reduction
gears.
This
mechanism is what connects the tram cars to the cable. The
angled pulleys are used to disconnect the gripper from the
cable. When the car comes into the station, a metal bar
engages the angled pulleys and forces them downward releasing
the grip on the cable.
These
bull wheels are used to maintain tension on the tram cable.
The
upper bull wheels are connected to another pulley that holds the
counterweights for the system.
We took
a taxi from the tram base station to the local cathedral.
While distorted due to the wide angle view, it was a very nice church
in good repair.
The
inside of the cathedral was impressive.
The
cupola had great colors and nice details.
The
altar area of the cathedral was nice as well.
We had
lunch at a nice restaurant close to the cathedral and then
walked to another park. There we could see the Hotel Salta
(not our hotel) that sports classic styling.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2018, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.