Río Grande

The path goes up, leaving Tatón and the Abaucán valley below. And it goes back up even higher. A trail that until recently was only suitable for mules, which collapses with the summer storms, becoming passable only for baqueanos and their horses.

On the journey we can find Elba Araya, carrying a tired goat on his chest. She and her family herd goats and goats to sell in Tatón, by mule, walking, as in the old days in the present times. A whole morning. It's sad, but that's how her grandfather and her grandparents' grandparents survived for generations. There, up on the hill.

We can meet Pedro Morales carrying a freshly butchered goat for Silvestre Suarez to take to town to host a party. He climbs it from the post of Don Gregorio Suarez, La Aguada, a climb between stones that emerged from the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago, crumbled by storms, with the energy of a puma, barely over breath. Don Gregorio Suarez solitary stall.

On the path, with views of the mountain range, the memory of a relative, a friend, who is greeted as he passes by and is left with flowers to remember him, and money to buy wine.

Se sigue subiendo y al final del camino, allá abajo, entre las montañas, asoma minúscula la alameda de Rio Grande. Al acercarse la alameda crece y dentro de su muralla incompetente contra el viento las casitas de pirca, caña y barro construidas alrededor de la Escuela.

"Before we had twenty-four students," says the principal, Doña Elida Morales. She used to get on a mule. And now also when the storms collapse the road .

Only eight families still live in the village. Although scattered in positions two, three, or nine hours from "La Escuela" as they call downtown Rio Grande.

The grandfather Don Antonio Suarez and his grandson Silvestre show us that spinning is not only a women's thing. The grandmother Dona Angélica Tolaba gives the bottle to the guachitos, the orphaned or abandoned goats. Florencia and her son allow themselves to be photographed in the schoolyard. And the teachers discreetly covered, according to the regulations.

Don Angel Sandón and his wife, Marta Suarez, invite us to spend the day at their El Pozo post, a three-hour walk from “La Escuela”. It's time to milk the goats, make cheese like every day when the good weather comes. After the task, mate, homemade bread and artisan cheese. Later, the roast goat.

And back, the long and winding road to the valley.

Thank you Ricardo for inviting us to Your Town. Thanks to all who welcomed us with so much affection.

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The Casa Grande expedition

Views of Punta Pabellón and dunes from the Casa Grande stand

After traveling the winding road from Tatón to Rio Grande, we approached the house of Don Ceferino Lopez. There they wait for us to prepare the mules with their excellent saddles, the traditional peleros that the Artisans of the Abaucán Territory weave since ancient times.

The expeditionaries, a film crew that came to document life in the posts of the hill, La Esquila and the landscapes of the mountains. They are Mariel Bomczuk, Agustín Lagos and Matías Reynoso. Don Ceferino and his son Gustavo are the Baqueanos guides.

The “temporal” accompanies us throughout the ascent, the cloud almost stuck to the ground, “it will be cold when we are arriving”, Don Ceferino warns. The trail is suitable only for mules, donkeys and walkers. He climbs towards the cloud stuck in the summits leaving behind, below, in the distance Rio Grande.

The ride lasts just over four hours through an imposing landscape that we can only intuit. Fog is a veil that hides the depths of the valleys and the mountain peaks from us. At dusk it is cold.

When you travel the roads for the first time you feel that feeling of time stretching, the destination seems unattainable. But it is achieved. Big House (3,400 masl). It is a dark night, the "storm" covers the reverberation of the stars, hidden is the environment that is not revealed until dawn.

In the kitchen, the water is ready to warm our bodies with some mate, then a stew and to rest in a room only lit by our flashlights. There is no electric light at the "puesto".

Dawn reveals the landscape that surrounds the post. Towards the NE, dominating the Cerro (5560 masl.) Pabellón, a round trip mule journey from Casa Grande. To the west the valley of Fiambalá, there far, there below and on the horizon the Cordillera de los Andes. A river runs down. White sand dunes invite exploration.

From under the sand the river emerges. "Everything has a lysergic point" commented one of the expedition members. Will it be the colors? The absolutely transparent air? That water sprouts from the sand? Come on, cheer up, find out?

On the way back, the panorama veiled by the "temporal", the bottom of the ravines, the tops of the mountains, there, far away, looming over the Andes, the Incahuasi volcano.

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