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–Bah! –I thought– I must be concentrated in the journey and have faith. I will know
everything in a few hours.

–Thirty litres of naphtha and two of oil sir.

–Take –I gave him the bill– Do you have a route map of the Province of Catamarca?

–Yes sir.

He went to the cabin and came back quickly bringing a drop-down map, in colours, with
profuse touristic information.

–You’ve to pay a thousand more.

I paid him and I started the motor to remove the car from the dispenser, but I parked
twenty metres forwards and I examined the map.

To go to Santa María from Salta¸ doesn’t mean any problem but, on the contrary, has the
advantage to include one of the prettiest touristic circuits of Northeast of Argentina. It is the
journey from Salta to Cafayate «the beautiful» as this famous city is popularly denominated
around the World for its exquisite wines, situated in the heart of the calchaquíes valleys.

With a road recently asphalted, the provincial Route N° 68, facilitates the travel and
permits to enjoy unique landscapes for its multicolour hills, these two hundred kilometres are
travelled rapidly. The disadvantages appear only at going out from Cafayate, crossing the
stream «de las conchas» abandoning the Province of Salta. It is entered then in the Province of
Tucumán, but just for some 40 km. because there is a small wedge that is embedded in the
Province of Catamarca. After the travel of this small road, is acceded to Catamarca in a point
that is at 80 km. from Santa María.

Crossing the aforementioned stream, fording it because there is no bridge, the traveller
has the sensation to have entered in another World.

Out of the artificial physiognomy of civilized features that the valley presents in Salta,
here is an ambit really autochthonous. The roads are dirt, neglected as is advanced towards the

South, and abound the settlements with houses of adobe dwelled by mestizo creoles, closer to
the Indian than the white man.

The poverty becomes evident at entering in Catamarca, a province unfairly forgotten by
the rest of the country and abandoned by its own children who, year after year, they undertake
the inevitable exodus of who tries to overcome the misery and progress materially.

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