Tatón is about 50 kilometers from Fiambala. From there to Rio Grande just over 40. However, it takes about five hours to travel the road that, although in restoration works, a good part is still gnawed by the rains. There is no complaint, until not long ago the inhabitants of RÃo Grande used to go down to Tatón on the back of a donkey with their merchandise: cheeses, goats, fabrics, threads, weeds ... Speed does not matter, time beats at a different rhythm in these mountains. The views invite you to take it easy. We are accompanied by Ricardo, Magali and MÃa.
Ricardo's family, Don Antonio Suarez and Doña Angélica Tolaba, his grandparents, and Silvestre, Goyo and Juan, his uncles, await us in RÃo Grande. It's already night, the welcome rite mate homemade bread, tortilla and cheese. Then dinner.
At six o'clock in the morning we leave for El Pozo, where Sandón, Marta, a thousand goats, sheep and country chores await us, milk and cape. The road is the old one for mules. The climb lasts even if it is only two hours of walking.
Intense, calm, elegant work. Roast goat for lunch with last minute guests. Pleasant after-dinner of quiet voices. The silence obviates the shouting. Names of the hills, the old days, jokes and gossip.
The return at sunset, spectacle of streams and peaks of four thousand meters. Far away those white sands exhaled by a volcano long, long time ago.
Sunday dawns with calm mate and tortillas freshly made on the fire. Family photo sessions and demonstration of men who know how to spin sheep, llama and vicuña wool. Lunch and then return along the precarious path of landscapes that Pachamama glimpse.
