A hike to, um, nowhere

I woke up super early to catch a bus to Alemanía with Patrick for a hike in the countryside. Alemanía was founded by Germans in the 19th century (who apparently got the pronunciation of their country wrong) and became a huge party town in the early 20th century when the Argentine government decided to build a railroad from Salta to Cafayate in order to transport food and wine to Salta.

Unfortunately, the railroad took longer than expected and the construction had only reached Alemanía (which is less than halfway to Cafayate) by the beginning of WWI. After the war, the government changed its mind and built a rail link to Chile instead. After the rail construction ceased, Alemanía faded in importance, and is now pretty much a ghost town:

The red roofed building in the center was the rail station during Alemanía´s glory days.

The plan for our hike was to hike four hours to a set of waterfalls, eat lunch, and then hike back to Alemanía and catch the bus back to Salta. Unfortunately, the two people we met in Alemanía (roughly half of the population) gave us bad directions and we set off in the wrong direction, although we were never really far enough away from the main highway to be really lost. At any rate, the scenery was stunning:

And I got really familiar with the thorn bushes native to Salta and now understand why the gauchos from this area have these giant saddle guards:

Eventually we reached a roadside restaurant, where we met a family who agreed to give us a lift into Salta (the mom later told us that we looked pathetic!).