We got up bright and early on our last morning in Salta, ate our standard hotel/hostel breakfast (bread, jam and coffee) andc set off towards the bus station. We had done all of our purchasing and packing the night before and were reasonably confident that we had enough food and fuel for 4 nights in the national park. We then claimed our usual ´panoramic seats´and set off in the direction of Libertador General San Martin. When we got there we were grateful we had done our shopping in Salta as it turned out to be, what can best be described as, a god forsaken hellhole. Libertador is a dirty, nasty, unfriendly little town based around the world´s biggest sugar refinery and I´ve never walked through a town where I felt more likely to have my throat slit before in my life. It didn´t help that we weren´t entirely sure where to go. The guidebook seemed to assume that we had both a map and a car, and the man a the bus station rattled on in rapid spanish that Rick couldn´t understand (and it goes without saying that I had no idea!) and ended up drawing us one of the most useless maps I´ve ever been given in my life. Still, amongst the unfriendly glares, revolting river and burning rubbish dump, we managed to find our way to the entry road. It was hot, our packs were heavy and it was a nasty walk, but as we got closer to the park, and further away from the awful town, it started to become a little nicer. It also helped when the park ranger stopped and gave us a lift to the campsite!
When we arrived at the campsite he gave us a map of the park, which was somewhat lacking in detail, but was the only map available, explained which trails were closed and wished us luck. We decided we were best off staying at the campsite the first night, as it was reasonably late and we weren´t confident that there were other places to camp along the way, so we set up the tend and set off to explore some of teh trails.
We started off following what we assumed was track 1, whcih was largely unexciting and dumped us back on the main road quite promptly so we decided to follw the road back tot eh bridge and clamber down into the riverbed (clearning ignoring all signs saying we weren´t allowed to), which was much more fun. We figured we must be on a river called the Rio San Lorenzo and that if we followed it around evenutally it would join another river and then meet up with trail 6' which sounded a lot more interesting than walking the designated trails. So we wandered back to camp to prepare dinner and swore that the next day we would go adventuring!
The highlight of the first day, apart from teh joy at getting out of Libertador and teh fun of clambering about the rocks, was also getting to see an actual toucan! This is a park that is known as a bird watchers paradise and we were certainly able to see a number of different species along the way. Not knowing anything about birds though, the toucan is the only one I can name! The park is also known for its diverse wildlife and that night Rick had a chat to an Italian boy about some animal he was particularly excited about the prospect of seeing. As they were speaking in a mix of Spanish and English I wasn´t really paying attention, but I did gather that there was some animal which was quite uncommon, but if you knew where it went to drink in the evenings you could see it. God only knows why I didn´t ask more questions at this point, but I didn´t, and I went to sleep that night happily looking forward to a day of exploring riverbeds in a cloudforest starting teh next morning.
