Amazing and powerful spirit 
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April in Greater Kruger
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April in Greater Kruger
Makes me want to go travelling Too cool
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from Namib to Etosha, climbing Naukluft
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Atacama
Emozioni...infinite come gli spazi senza confini tra terra e cielo..da vivere nel silenzio sussurrato ... -
from Namib to Etosha, climbing Naukluft
Illustrazioni, foto e testi sono fantastici e davvero coinvolgenti. grazie
Argentina
JUJUY & SALTA: PUNA DE ATACAMA, AVENTURA Y ROMANTICISMO
Argentina
Noroeste, Argentina
Puna de Atacama: aventura y romanticismo
Puna de Atacama: aventura y romanticismo
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North-west Argentina, close to the Andes, gives the impression of a raw, dusty, wild borderland. It is a sort of “world outside”, which instills a feeling of saudade and at the same a will to explore the next land, to move further the border.
It seems like a sleepy decadent and resigned place and while you feel this, it has already started to kidnap you with inexplicable fascination.
Driving the tracks stretching along the Puna Argentina is actually the best way to understand the emotions which an on-the-road journey gifts.
Argentina, or at least the segment that we visited, is a contrasting country. In cities, where society reads and expresses itself in Western terms, widespread poverty is perceived. Here, in the modern lifestyle, there is an uncomfortable attempt to keep up with the economic and social requirements of the economically developed world.
However, there is an Argentina with a more authentic flavor, more frontier, more wild land to explore. There is an Argentina which is a land of crossroads of cultures, that mixes itself into a fascinating past. A land where peoples and people have placed dreams and hopes.
This is not to say that towns, which seem somewhat like an unsuccessful experiment of a new unfinished world, are less true, but they are simply a part. There is strongly the other side which gives the opposite feeling, but actually indissoluble with it. As such these two parts must be understood, they must be accepted and appreciated, while despising and loving at the same time.
North Argentina is a Country of roads which aren’t roads, where the dust that rises from your passage returns to fill the desert.
Noroeste is a land with villages where doors are without locks and bartering matters more than money.
It is a land where villages have schools even if the inhabitants can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are villages where you can communicate with the outside world only with 1 municipal radio for a short window of time and you can have electricity few hours per day, but you feel to miss nothing. There are places where you can grasp the authentic meaning of Pachamama.
It is in this Argentina you will find the stars above, in front of and below you. It is in this Argentina that you will perceive the Earth enter your soul in an indissoluble way and become a spirit.
...el derecho al vagabundeo, a la aventura, a la utopìa y al romanticismo.
Highlights of the north-west Argentina where we travelled through are Hornocal, Quebrada de Humahuca, Tilcara, Purmamarca, Cuesta de Lipàn, Salina Grande, Salar de Jama, Laguna Ana, Quebrada de Mal Paso & Rio de las Burras, Salta, Cafayate, Quebrada de las Flechas, Quebrada de las Conchas, Quilmes, El Penon, Laguna Blanca, Karaci Pampa & Campo de Pedra Pomez, caldera de Galan & Laguna Diamante, Salar de Antofalla, Salar de Arizaro & Cono de Arita, Tolar Grande, Ojos del Mar, Desierto del Diablo & Las 7 Curvas, Salar de Pocito,...
Tilcara
Argentina - Quebrada de Humahuaca
Tilcara is a small town with decadent charm, with far-west traits.
Nestled in the mountains, in the Quebrada of Humahuaca, it recalls with its Pukara the presence of the ancient pre-Columbian peoples and, at the same time, it shows itself as a frontier land for Latin colonists looking for luck in the new world.
Tilcara is an excellent base for visiting the Quebrada de Humahuaca and in particular the wonderful Hornocal.
Getting to Tilcara going down the Cuesta del Lipan, via Purmamarca and going up the Quebrada de Humahuca, is a memorable "on-the-road" journey.
Tolar Grande
Argentina - Los Andes - Puna
Tolar Grande is a former mining railway-yard village, located at the core of the Argentina's Puna into the Los Andes department.
It lies on the shore of the Salar de Arizaro, offering outstanding attractions such as the astonishing and mythological Cono de Arita, the stunning Ojos del Mar, the lonely El Deserto del Diablo y Las 7 Curvas.
Traversing the Puna to arrive here, via Salar de Antofalla, is the ultimate wilderness 4x4 experience!
Having been in Tolar Grande will gift you a stunning "out-of-World" feeling, experimenting the border between known and unknown lands.
Looking for a folk habit, but with proper dutifulness? Pachamama is a folk ritual practiced here as well, opening mind to sense of respect for nature and earth.
El Peñón
Argentina - Los Andes - Puna
El Peñón is “la Puna”. This small village is nestled in Argentinean Andes where during the night you can enjoy the stars around you just walking around. You can look the stars face to face and see the Milky-Way ending below you.
It takes a while from Cafayate (allows 6-7 hours drive with your own 4x4), but it’s a fully worthy destination. To be true, visiting the Puna, El Peñón is the destination.
To arrive here you pass through incredible worlds, pastures in Far-West style, seaside-like giant sand dunes at almost 4000 meters above sea level, volcanoes and wild meadows home of vicunas and suris, salares and lagunas, epic mountain passes...and this small settlement is lying there, beyond these, like a forgotten oasis.
The lean plumes of smokes, the thiny brick houses, the children who lead sheep to graze and the few haggard trees are drawing the paint of this out-of-world place.
Electricity is limited to few hours per day and communication outside village is possibile only via public radio, available to use in a short window of time. You have to heat your room with a small and smoky wood stove.
If you think many things are missing here, El Peñón will redesign your idea of poverty and wealth. Walking around desert dusty street of El Peñón with your backpack is an amazing feeling, sitting at the square is a once in life destination.
Campo de Pedra Pomez and Volcan Galan’s caldera are the attraction which bring you up to here and they are actually wonderful. The sense of voyage, adventure, freedom which you can experiment in El Peñón and for the desert area hundreds of kilometers around, it’s what you bring home inside you. This is not just a memory, it’s a taste, a smell, a feeling, an ideal and a value.
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