by Jerold Last
We spent part of the rest of the morning being tourists, tasting wines at the local wineries. At about 1 we had lunch at a nice restaurant on the square in the middle of town, before beginning the long drive back to Salta. We got back to Salta in time for dinner at 10 PM, which was considered normal in Argentina. That got us back to our hotel in time to make arrangements to fly home in a couple of days, after visiting Santa Rosa de Tastil the next day, and to get a good night’s sleep,
Chapter11.Santa Rosa de Tastil
Early Wednesday morning we left the hotel in a rented car and drove south and west from Salta to Campo Quijano, an old city in the Lerma River Valley known as “the Door to the Andes”. The old city is now best known as a station on the route of the tourist Train to the Clouds. After a quick pit stop for both the car and us at the only gas station in town, we started to climb the Andes Mountains on National Route 51 (an unpaved, but well maintained, narrow dirt and gravel highway). The other end of this road is the Chilean border at the top of the Andes Mountains. Our destination was Santa Rosa de Tastil, about 4 hours of climbing on a winding road, with some bridges over rivers and streams, but also two places where the car had to ford the streams. After a heavy rain the road becomes impassible. Dodging trucks and buses, which never slowed down, tested our nerves for the entire trip.
The road was worthy of being a third world highway, and is nothing like what I was used to in the United States. By comparison, the grapevine, which climbs steeply from the Central Valley to the mountains guarding Los Angeles, is a gentle grade. Because this road climbs such a steep mountain so quickly, it’s a constant succession of switchbacks. The views from the side of the road are straight down and no place for the timid with their eyes open. There are plenty of opportunities for what my father used to call “white knuckle time” when I was a kid. Along the entire length of the road are frequent crosses and memorials at the roadside where people died going over cliffs when they missed the curve, drove too fast, or were forced to the side of the narrow road by a bus or truck.
Occasional little pockets of dwellings nestled in the almost sheer mountainside where indigenous people eked out a subsistence living with a few tethered goats, loose dogs, and chickens pecking out an existence. In the Andean indigenous towns and villages of Argentina Spanish is universal, but Quechua (the language of the descendants of the Incas) is also heard. The Quechua language also influences the local names for foods (like locro) and places (like Purmamarca).
Somehow we got there intact. The city of Santa Rosa de Tastil, at an elevation of 3,110 meters (10,203 feet), has a total population of about a dozen hardy souls. One fourth of the dozen residents are the staff of the Regional Museum of Tastil. The city is situated near the ruins of Tastil, an ancient indigenous city that preceded the Incas and the Spanish by several centuries. It was a major regional center for agriculture, trade, and commerce situated above the most important north-south route along the Andean altiplano. The surrounding rural area has a total population of about 150 people, who live in tiny farming enclaves along the road. The most distinctive feature of the town is a 1-room archeological museum staffed by two teachers, who introduced themselves to us as we entered the building.
A woman sat behind the desk immediately on our right working on a big accounting-type ledger and collecting the entry fee. “Buen dia. My name is Rosita. My husband and I live here and maintain the museum, which is small but contains some very nice exhibits related to the area. We accept donations from visitors. Your entire donation will go towards improving our exhibits here.
“We feature old local pottery found at the excavation site, costumes that would have been typical of eight or nine centuries ago when this was a major commercial center, and other archeological finds from Tastil. One of the displays you won’t see very often anywhere else are several mummies.”
Suzanne took several banknotes out of her pocket to make our donation, about the equivalent of $5 in U.S. currency. “Mummies? That seems strange. Is there some relationship to ancient Egyptian religions here?”
Rosita smiled broadly. “No, it hasn’t anything to do with religion. The cold dry climate we have here high on the Andean Altiplano facilitates the drying out of dead bodies. Almost perfect mummies of a mother and a very young child were unearthed from the site and donated to us for display.”
She pointed to a tall gentleman standing by a display case inside. “That’s my husband Frederico. He teaches school to all of the children in the town and the surrounding rural area. He’ll also be your guide when you’ve finished viewing the museum and you’re ready to climb up the hill to explore the ruins.”
The distinctive feature of the area is the ruins of Tastil, at the peak of its power a wealthy city with an estimated 3,000 inhabitants. Tastil was a thriving community from about 600 AD until its abrupt disappearance between 1200-1300 AD.
Half an hour later we had climbed the hill and stood looking at the ruins of the ancient city. The ruins contain the skeletal remains of structures that were obviously houses and communal space. Fragments of ancient pottery litter the ground in and around the ruins. Climbing 500 meters up a long, steep hill at this altitude wasn’t easy. Suzanne and I were both breathing hard and ready for a short break at the top of the hill. Frederico looked like he did it every day and didn’t seem to notice the thin air at 10,000+ feet of elevation.
We had a great view of the mountains and of the steep winding road we’d driven on to get here spread out below us. I’d noticed a large black car in the rear view mirror several times on the road up to Santa Rosa de Tastil. It was a large car for Salta, where the price of diesel fuel was high enough to encourage most car buyers to choose small cars with good fuel economy, so it was easy to recognize. It was too far behind us to see the driver or whether there were any passengers. This wasn’t a road that encouraged passing other cars, so I didn’t automatically assume they were following us, but had made a mental note to look out for the same car on our return trip downhill.
Sure enough, there was the car, several hundred meters below the town, parked alongside the road in a space that had been widened out to allow a car to safely pull over to allow passing. Two men stood alongside the car. We were much too far away to recognize either of them.
Suzanne turned to our guide. “This is amazing, Frederico. It’s a fascinating archeological site. If it were anywhere in Western Europe or the USA, Tastil would have dozens of students and amateur archeologists digging up pottery fragments and whatever else they could find as fast as they could. Here, in a difficult place to get to, high in Argentina’s Andes Mountains, it’s deserted and relatively untouched. What can you tell us about the city and about what happened to the people who lived here?”
Frederico shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t really tell you anything about the city’s end. Since the site is unexcavated, at least professionally, no details are known about what made the population that had lived there for 700 years leave the city.”
Our guide made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the entire expanse of the ruins. He continued speaking. “I can tell you a lot more about the city itself. The ruins stand at the top of a mountain peak above the city, at an altitude of 3,500 meters above sea level, more than 500 meters straight uphill from the river that is the nearest supply of water. The women in the old city of Tastil carried water on their heads in ceramic jugs about 2 miles uphill on a winding path with many switchbacks to minimize lethal falls. This hard-earned water was used for drinking, for cooking, and for hand watering the plants that supplied most of the food consumed by 2,000-3,000 people in the city. With an average annual rainfall of 1-2 inches, hand watering of crops was essential.”
Suzanne looked confused. “I don’t understand. Why make their life so difficult when they could have built their city where the town is now, right near the river and all of the water they needed?”
Frederico grinned and nodded. This was a good question. He would have liked having Suzanne as a st
udent in one of his classes in the school. “This difficult life style at the top of a mountain peak had a reason. The city was deliberately situated on top of a highly defensible mountain peak where it controlled several mountain passes and allowed the governing officials to collect tolls from all of the commerce that passed by.
“There were other difficulties as well. With the arid conditions, there was no forage for animals, so corn and other agricultural products was the only food available other than occasional wild game. Everything was done by hand; there were no domestic animals to do the heavy lifting and pulling. Cactus is prevalent but trees are not seen near the Tastil ruins so wood was scarce and precious. A constant wind blows sand and grit; this is not a place for contact lenses.”
Suzanne had another question. “If there weren’t any trees, how did they build houses? What were they built from?”
Frederico walked us over the remains of one of the walls sticking up out of the ground. “The walls of the structures were constructed entirely from the local rocks, some of which were quite large and may have weighed a ton or more. The walls averaged about a meter in thickness. Rooms were interconnected, closely packed, and seem to be random in size and shape. Because the indigenous inhabitants of the Andes hadn’t discovered cement or mortar before the Spanish conquistadores came, the rocks were only loosely fitted together. The rooms must have been quite cold and drafty. Larger rooms contained what were almost certainly fire pits, while smaller rooms were probably used for storage or as burial sites.”
Frederico politely asked Suzanne if she had any more questions.
She picked up a large shard of pottery and admired it before carefully returning it to where it had lain for the last 850 years. “Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with us so generously, Frederico. I’m sorry if I asked too many questions but this is a very special place. Would it be all right for me to make an additional donation to the museum?”
He nodded affirmatively.
Suzanne gave him an additional $10 in pesos as a tip/donation. “You are very generous, Senora. Muchas gracias.”
We walked downhill, said our good-byes to Rosita and Frederico, and climbed back into the car for the long drive home.
About twenty minutes after we left Santa Rosa de Tastil to return to Salta, the large black car was once again visible in the rear view mirror. The highway didn’t have any turnoffs or crossroads at this high altitude, so the car and its occupants could have waited for us anywhere along the road with no risk of our going elsewhere, unless we were planning on visiting Chile on the western side of the Andes Mountains.
“Suzanne, did you notice the black car behind us? I think it’s the same car that followed us up the mountain.”
Suzanne turned around to look out the rear window. “Yes, of course I’ve seen it.”
I looked ahead, as far as I could see before the next curve, a distance of a few hundred meters. “This is a good place to stage an accident if that’s what they want to do. My guess is that they’ll try to force us off the road and over a cliff on one of the curves. We need a plan about what to do if that happens.”
Suzanne sat up straighter in her seat to steal a quick look behind us in the passenger side mirror. “That’s why you’re here Roger, isn’t it? Tell me what you want me to do.”
I answered with a lot more confidence than I actually felt. “I’ve had the course in driving under stress for bodyguards, so can probably handle a car better than those guys. They’ve got a big car with plenty of power and we have an underpowered piece of junk that we rented, but that’s my problem to handle. Our best guess is they’ll try to pass us on a curve and force us off the road. That’s how an amateur would do it and these guys have been amateurish about everything else they’ve done so far. Our best chance would be to get them out of the car and on the ground where we can even the odds a bit.”
“OK,” Suzanne replied. “Then what?”
“This time around you’ll get a chance to use those karate skills you told me about after dinner at the folkloric restaurant. Have you ever had a real street fight rather than just workouts in a gym and tournaments?”
“Once. Someone tried to mug me on the street as I unlocked my car. I got a good kick into his solar plexus and knocked him down. There was plenty of time afterwards to get into the car and drive off safely.”
“That’s not a street fight. Street fights are nasty and dirty, and you have to win quickly or you’ll lose. Remember the guys on the street in Salta with the knives? You thought I was being brutal when I went for arm and shoulder injuries that would put them into the hospital and never really gave them a chance. But that’s what real fights are about. You have to inflict real injuries that put the other guy out of commission before he can do real damage to you. What I want you to do is not to think but to act. When the guys get out of the car, you should act scared and helpless. When your guy gets close enough to you, act fast and decisively.
“I want you to kick his front knee hard enough to tear the hell out of it. Then go for the same kick to the other knee if he’s still standing up. If he goes down on the first kick break one of his arms or a wrist. That should be enough to make sure we won’t see him on our trail tomorrow or in Cafayate. The trick to being faster and getting the first blow in a fight is simple. Visualize what you’ll do in your head as many times as you can while we’re driving, so you’re ready to do it when the time comes. While all of this is going on, I should be doing the same thing, more or less, to the other guy.”
I took my eyes off the road just long enough to take a look through the rearview mirror. The large car behind us increased its speed and started to catch up. We were immediately into a high-speed chase as I stepped hard on the gas pedal. The black car was bigger and more powerful than we were. Our smaller and lighter car was more maneuverable on the steep curving dirt and gravel road that was taking us down the mountain. We had the advantage on the curves, but would be in trouble the first time we found ourselves on a long straight stretch of road. The crummy rental car held its own for a couple of miles, but up ahead was a long straight stretch of road that could be where we lost this race. On our right was a sheer rock wall of mountain. On the left was an unfenced view of the canyon several thousand feet down. The road was barely wide enough for a car coming up or going down the highway to pass. I floored the gas pedal and the car leaped forward, widening the distance between the two cars to almost 250 yards before the other driver realized what was happening and stepped on the gas to catch up.
I snuck a quick look at Suzanne. “At the end of this straight part of the road, I’ll downshift to start slowing the car without revealing our strategy to the guys following us by letting the brake lights show. As soon as we’re around the curve where they can’t see us, I’ll hit the brakes as hard as I can without putting us into a skid. We’ll have to get out of the car as close to the rock wall on the downhill side of the car as fast as we can. When they come around that curve, our friends behind us will have two choices and have to make one of them very quickly. They can crash into our car and risk going over the cliff, or stop and come after us. I’m betting they’ll take the second choice and come for us. Your job is to pray there isn’t a bus or truck coming up the road while all this is happening.”
A second or two later I steered around the curve and hit the brake as hard as I dared. The car slowed and shuddered to a halt. We only had a few seconds before the big car would be on top of us. We scrambled a couple of yards downhill, to the side of the mountain. The driver of the large black car braked frantically, skidding his car to a halt about ten yards behind ours. The car doors opened almost immediately and the two men who had followed us from Los Angeles walked towards us. No guns were showing. Good!
They seemed confident we were helpless. The larger one came around the back of our car towards me. The smaller guy came around the front and headed for Suzanne. Suddenly, things happened very quickly. My guy had a ruined knee from a leg kick and a rupture
d spleen from an open handed blow. He was down on the ground before he realized there had been a fight. For her part, Suzanne didn’t hesitate for a second. I saw a flash of leg as she pivoted into a sidekick and took out her opponent’s right knee. A second, similar, kick followed immediately and got his left knee. Now both guys were on the ground moaning in pain.
By the time I walked over and felt pockets, both of them had passed out and lay there unconscious. In another minute we had their passports, address books, and wallets, and were almost ready to go. “There’s one more thing I have to do. Just stay here for a minute or two,” I told Suzanne.
Walking over to the guy who Suzanne had taken out in her piece of the fight, I dragged him to the car. He got the seat of honor, sitting upright in front of the steering wheel. Just in case, I broke his right thumb so he couldn’t handle the manual gearshift without excruciating pain. He slumped over the steering wheel, where he remained sitting upright. I made sure the ignition key was turned to the “on” position, but with the gearshift lever in neutral and the emergency brake partially on so the car wouldn’t roll without a push.