From the tropics to the desert Train to the Clouds

After shaking a bit through Salta yesterday and taking the cable car to Cerro San Bernardo, the mountain that is basically the local mountain, with an approaching storm, I took the stairs down and went to the train station early at 3/4 past six to take the Train to the Clouds. Honestly, you have to take a bus for about 150km first, because the privatization of the railway and its infrastructure in the 90s has dimmed the lights so much that it is no longer allowed to transport people on the tracks. Even the renationalization couldn't save it. It's a pity considering the potential of the train here, everything is almost transported by bus and truck across the country. I would have been disappointed if I hadn't known that beforehand.

So it started at 1100m in tropical Salta and into the Torre Valley, after a short drive the vegetation changed to a steppe-like landscape, another 30km further, at an altitude of about 2200m, the typical giant cacti appeared, which grow up to about 3000m altitude, which is also the height of the arid desert Purma. While about 3500mm of rain falls below, here it is still a maximum of 100mm. Crazy, all of this within about 100km and a difference in altitude of 2000m.

Then it went another 1000m higher, the green leaves for chewing worked well, we reached the pass at 4080m from where you can see some mountains of the Andes, including the volcano Cerro Tuzgle. We continued to the highest city in Argentina, San Antonio de Los Cobres, at 3800m.

And here we first boarded the train for the next 25km to the Viaduct of Polvorilla at almost 4300m (a normal cigarette really hits hard😛) and back, the route actually leads to Antofagasta in Chile on the Pacific Ocean. The route is a masterpiece of engineering and was built from 1920 to 1946 (construction was largely halted during the war). In San Antonio de los Cobres, I tried llama steak - I would say the texture was good, but the taste took some getting used to.

I'll skip all the intermediate stops of the bus, just folklore. On the way back, I saw 2 condors circling and now I'm back again. Everything was well organized and guided. Except that I was probably supposed to be placed in a wagon full of French people because of my name - declined (as there was only a French explanation).

Today, thanks go to the Shell gas station in Salta for ultra-fast WiFi!