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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