Uspallata

I thought it was a one-horse town, but there are at least three. And a bunch of dogs.

 

What is it that I instantly love about this place? Is it the brightness in the desert air, the way the sun in all its unhindered intensity casts a pure but somehow mellow shine over everything? Is it the inexplicable quiet, as though the endless blue sky were a vacuum stealing the vitality from every sound, that despite everything happening in the street the whole town - it would seem from here the whole world - rests under a blanket of calm?

 

I sit out on the patio of a roadside restaurant watching small-town life go by. Across the street a man steps out of a shop and crouches down between two wooden posts, stretching out his arms to a passing stray dog. Happy for attention the dog wanders up to receive some pets and a hearty hug; after a few minutes the dog carries on and the man returns to the shop. My eye moves to a boy standing on the roadside with flyers in his hand trying to flag down passing cars to stop at the restaurant. Somehow he reminds me of what my grandpa might have been like as a kid; I start to think about how much he would have loved this place, perhaps sitting at the same table and sipping the same strong coffee as I am now, taking in all the sights and muted sounds, enjoying the ever-present smell of a wood fire somewhere...

 

Back at camp the mountain views are spectacular, peaks and ridges contoured in pinks, greys and whites as if moulded from clay. I've tried to take about fifty photos but it seems impossible to capture even a corner of this scene with any sort of justice. Poplar leaves shimmer golden-yellow as the dry wind moves between them, sometimes a whisper, sometimes a shout. It's turned almost a full circle since yesterday bringing in some patchy clouds. I've decided to stay here two more nights and take a day trip tomorrow to Puente del Inca, on the edge of Parque Provincial Aconcagua. Expectation is a funny thing, but this to me is finally starting to feel like South America.