Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Andes

From my travel journal (2009) translated with “www.DeepL.com”: We leave Purmamarca and follow Ruta 52. Outside the town there are still beautiful coloured rock formations and lots of flowers (PiP1). As we climb higher and higher, the landscape slowly changes and has just sparse vegetation, with only cacti at the end. At Lipan the road has the first series of hairpin bends (PiP2) of the Cuesta de Lipán (main picture). The surroundings and the views of the Andes mountains are getting more and more impressive. We climb in our car with a reasonable speed, but a few large trucks are crawling up the mountain road. Busses however are more in a hurry and pass us at the most impossible places. After thirty bends and hairpins we arrive on a kind of plateau. Not much later we reach Abra de Potrerillos, a pass at the unbelievable altitude of 4,170 metres above sea level. It is cloudy and therefore freezing cold. With three cars it's a bit busier than on the road. An indigenous woman has displayed her things, hoping to sell something (PiP3). How she got here and where she came from is not clear to us. When we start the descent, the clouds quickly become less and the view better. We look out on a kind of plateau and on several Andes peaks, most of them are covered with snow. In the distance is a small white spot (PiP4): without doubt the salt flats of the Salinas Grandes. We descend with a few big bends and drive through a kind of gorge to a long straight road (PiP5) with always a view on the dazzling white salt plain. It takes a while before we really reach the salt lake (PiP6). But at last there are the Salinas Grandes , as far as the eye can see and that still at an altitude of almost 3,500 meters ….. ….. The way back is on the same road and we climb above 4.000 meters again. The weather is better now and on the pass it is even sunny. We buy a piece of rock from the lonely indigenous woman and make some (new) pictures. At the Cuesta de Lipan low hanging clouds make the descent even more straining. After an incredible adventure of seven hours we are back Purmamarca.

A pucará is a defensive hilltop site or fortress built by the prehispanic and historic inhabitants of the central Andean area. Around the year 1000 there was a line of twenty-two of these aboriginal fortresses that were deployed on the hills along the Quebrada de Humahuaca. The pucará of Tilcara (PiP4) is the best-known archaeological site of northwest Argentina, but often full of tourists. Less than 10 km’s away we found another pucará which we heard about in our accommodation. This pucará de Juella is located at 2.750 meters on a plateau outside the hamlet of Juella. This fortress was inhabited until the 12th century and is not altered or reconstructed. The ruins - often nothing more than fallen rocks or deposits of the pucará - are surrounded by a forest of cardones . It was quite difficult to find the pucará , as it was not signposted and we even had to cross a fast-flowing river (PiP3). On the other bank of that river we found a local, who - for a couple of pesos - pointed us in the right direction.

La Mitica Ruta 40 (the Mythical Route 40) is the nickname of “Ruta 40”. The highway, partly unpaved and loaded with hairpin bends, runs from the far north to the southernmost tip of Argentina. Endless desert plains, crystal clear lakes, glaciers, lush vineyards and the peaks of the Andes accompany the road. Route 40's highest point is almost 5.000 meters in Abra del Acay in Salta Province The 5.224 kilometers long “Ruta 40” connects the village La Quiaca in northern Argentina with the southern town of Rio Gallegos (at Punta Loyola) on the Strait of Magellan in Patagonia. The rugged roadtrip goes through eleven provinces and two provincial capitals, over twentyfour important rivers and along twenty natural parks !!! We only did the part of “Ruta 40” between Cachi and Cafayate. Although just 150 km it took us almost a whole day of driving on an almost completely unpaved road, which looked like a washboard in several places. "Ruta 40" - at least our part - is sometimes a wide straight road, many times very narrow and winding. Sometimes we drove along the edge of ravines, then again through a lovely green landscape. It was always hilly and went up and down all the time. Stones, dust and grit are everywhere. Despite all that, it was a great experience with a ride through a very impressive landscape - with the stretch through the Quebrada de las Flechas ( www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/48888910 ) as the absolute highlight - and along quaint small rural villages.

We were lucky to drive a part of the famous Ruta 40 - from Cachi to Cafayate - in March. That turned out to be the harvest season of the red peppers. On several places along the road they were lying on the fields. We heard from locals that the region features the necessary aridity and the ideal level of sunlight for the cultivation of this kind of peppers.