Salta - La Caldera - El Carmen (RN9)

 Cycling Argentina's North from Salto to El Carmen.

Today is the day: today we start the first laegof our cycling tour in South America. starting! The imponderables of the long trans Atlantic flight lie behind us, we and our equipment have arrived safely in Salta. We starts with a mixture of joyful anticipation and nervous tension about the challenges waiting for us. Since we had chosen our accommodation in the south of the city near the airport, today we first cycle across the city. City traffic is quite easy going, but we quickly learn to respect the buses. Buses go here to arrive. Not to dawdle. Long distance buses in Argentina are known to be notoriously late. I can tell: It can't be the fault of the drivers.

After leavong the city of Salty, we cycle north following the N9 towards El Carmen. Outside the urban area, traffic decreases quickly, and there is hardly any heavy traffic at all. We already learned to be careful of buses, now we're testing interaction with free-roaming horses.   

In the village La Caldera we take a lunch break. The place can only be reached via a bridge over the Rio la Caldera. In La Caldera we eat empanadas and drink cola with sugar. Empanadas are the typical dish of the region and taste delicious. Since there are empanadas with different fillings, we order one of each type. The Cola comes with sugars: Coke Zero or similar sugar-free drinks in general are alien to Argentians. There is hardly a table in a restaurant that doesn't have a large bottle of Coke on it. Argentinia is the country with the highest suggar consumption on this planet, followed by Chile. Surprisingly, the USA is only third. How do people say? Different countries, different cola. 

North of La Caldera we drive past the Campo Alegre reservoir. The reservoir was built in the early 1970s and is build to supply the region with water. Remarkable: it is the first reservoir that I cycle past that is not shown on Google Maps (as of 2022). You have to switch to the satellite images to see the reservoir. Quite strange given the fact that the reservoir has a surface area of more than 300 hectares / 1.2 square miles.    

In the afternoon we enter the first highlight of this year's bicycle tour: The Camino de Cornisa. Shortly behind the reservoir we reach an altitude of 1400m. From here, the national road N9 changes its appearance significantly: the road leads downhill through a subtropical cloud forest. The landscape beside the street is incredibly green and even above us there is enough green to block any view of the blue sky. The width of the street corresponds to that of a well-developed cycle path. It's hard to believe we're following a national road.        

This section of the N9 is called by the locals Camino de Cornisa and consists of a series of tight curves. Straight sections are longer than 50m. To the left of us the terrain rises steeply, to the right of us it descends just as steeply, on som eplaces around 100m. Funnily enough, while we hope not to encounter any oncoming traffic on this section, we encounter several cyclists.       

The N9 between Salta and El Carmen is an absolute highlight and recommended for cyclists on the journey north towards San Salvador de Jujuy. The winding road is very accident-prone, especially in the dark - the many warning signs indicate this. Despite the high number of accidents, I don't want to call the route dangerous, but maybe you should better arrive at your destination before sunset. 

However, the birds in the trees on the side of the road make me reconsider my assessment of how dangerous this road might be: the birds are Caracaras (I think they are Crested Caracaras). These animals have a wingspan of more than one meter and can be found on larger cadavers together with vultures. With an avarage weight ao 1,4kg or 3 lbs, Caracaras are the second-largest species of falcon in the world by mean body mass. Caracaras are silent fliers whose flapping wings are barely noticeable. Better not take off your helmet!

Shortly before arriving in El Carmen we leave the steep terrain. The landscape becomes flat, but the road remains to be very narrow. Similar to Salta, it is quite warm in El Carmen, in the late afternoon it is still a pleasant 24°C 75° F at the end of August. We are quite satisfied with the elevation gain: El Carmen, like our starting point in Salta, is a little over 1000m, the pass height this afternoon was around 1400m. In total, a climb of 400 meters while sleeping at a low altitude. Perfect for aclimatisation, unfortunally the terrain will not maintain this gentle climb for the next few days. 

El Carmen is one of the oldest towns in the Province of Jujuy and offers a selection of restaurants. But unfortunately there is a music festival taking place today, which is why almost all restaurants are closed. Google Maps doesn't always seem to be up to date in this region: while looking for a restaurant we almost run into the living room of a private house, only because this house was marked as a restaurant in google map. There were several people sitting at a table behind a large window and someone was placing food on the table. If Marion hadn't held me back, I would have joined them. Later ended up in a pizza place and ordered a beer alongside the obligatory liter bottle of Coke. The beer is also served in liter bottles.