A Salta Cerro x2, a Park, and a Church

This afternoon, I rose above Salta to go to the top of a cerro and then another cerro before coming back down and visiting a park and a church.

About rising above, Salta is in a valley, the Lerma Valley, between what I’m going to call two mountain ranges. One is quite close to central Salta.

The one on the other side of Salta’s sprawl is much farther away. But it’s still easily visible from central Salta if you have a vantage point high enough that the buildings of Salta don’t eclipse it. That doesn’t have to be all that high because Salta is a fairly low-rise city. I can say with certainty that the fifth floor of my hotel, the highest floor with rooms, will do.

I said, “what I’m going to call two mountain ranges,” rather than “two mountain ranges” because I have some evidence that they might not be considered to be mountains locally.

This afternoon, I went up the closest of them, Cerro San Bernardo, and from there over to one close behind it, Cerro Aladelta.

I looked up “cerro” on Google Translate. It’s Spanish for “hill,” not “mountain.” That’s crazy.

I’ve been to Montreal. Some decades ago, I walked up Montreal’s Mount Royal, as one reader might be able to attest if she remembers. Mount Royal is nothing compared to either Cerro San Bernardo or Cerro Aladelta.

I didn’t walk up either of the cerras here. If I did, walking up just one, spending some time at the summit and then walking back down probably would have been close to a full-day activity for a man my age. And that’s assuming my heart didn’t give out on the way. If it did, it would have taken me an eternity, and I still wouldn’t have completed the journey.

The point is, if Montreal’s geographic protuberance can be called Mount Royal, Cerro San Bernardo and Cerro Aladelta are entitled to mountainhood too, to my mind.

Cerro San Bernardo

If I didn’t walk up to the summit of Cerro San Bernardo, how did I get up there, you ask? There’s a gondola (aka ski lift without the skiing, aka cable car, aka teleferico, which is Spanish for cable car) that goes up there. The lower station is in the city, just a few blocks back from the base of the hill/mountain and walking distance from my hotel.

The ride up takes about ten minutes.

It’s not a large summit. Up top, there’s the upper station for the cable car, a snack bar with tables, and an observation deck that provides views of Salta spread out before it and the other mountain range behind that. There’s also a fountain that creates a cascading waterfall over the top of the hill/mountain, a children’s playground, and a building that looks like it might be intended as a restaurant, but it was closed. It’s not the height of the tourist season now. I don’t know if that’s the reason it wasn’t open.

The view to the far mountain range was somewhat obscured by clouds, but it was still visible. (I wanted to go up to the summit of Cerra San Bernardo when it would be as clear as possible, but the forecast calls for a mix of sun and cloud for the whole time I’m here. When I started for the base station for the cable car up to Cerro San Bernardo, it was fairly clear, so I figured that was as good a time as any.

The views in the other directions from the summit were mostly blocked by trees, buildings, or …

Oh, there’s another thing up at the summit: A station for another cable car, this one going between Cerro San Bernardo and Cerro Aladelta. There was an extra cost for that. When I first got there and looked over at Cerro Aladelta, it looked kind of cloudy. So I didn’t go. Instead, I went to the snack bar and had some lunch.

By the time I finished lunch, Cerro Aladelta looked reasonably clear, so I bought a ticket and went there.

Cerro Aladelta

Cerro Aladelta looked to be about the same height as Cerro San Bernardo. There’s a slight droop in the cable between the two, but it otherwise looked like a fairly level ride.

The summit of Cerro Aladelta is even smaller than the summit of Cerro San Bernardo. And there’s less there. There’s the cable car station, a snack bar that’s just a counter, and some outdoor tables for picnicking. There’s also open space to take in the views. And those views are gorgeous.

Unlike the Andes mountains I saw on my day trip out of Mendoza, Cerro Aladelta, Cerro San Bernardo, the other nearby hills/mountains, and the far mountain range are all densely forested and lushly green. And because there are fewer obstructions on the summit of Cerro Aladelta, it made for a beautiful 360-degree sight.

Aside

What a Wonderful World

On the way up to Cerro San Bernardo, on the way over to and back from Cerro Aladelta, and on the way back down to street level from Cerro San Bernardo, I had a gondola car all to myself. So my view out the windows was unobstructed.

On the way back down to the city, when I looked out at Salta spread out before me, the mountains behind it, and the mixed sun and cloud sky, a song came bursting into my head. (No, there was no music playing in the gondola.)

The song was “What a Wonderful World.” It was first recorded by the late Louis Armstrong, and I love that version. Several other artists have recorded covers of it. My favourite of the covers is probably the one by the late Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, who seamlessly melded “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” onto “What a Wonderful World.”

As I looked out over the beauty spread before me, a couple of verses from What a Wonderful World played on repeat in my mind. (I copied and pasted them from the internet here to make sure I didn’t mess them up. My mind probably got some of it wrong on the gondola.)

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I had the urge to burst out into song aloud. Then I remembered that my singing frightens young children, small animals, medium-size animals, large animals, and probably some vegetation. I was, as I said, alone in the gondola. No one else could have heard me, but humans are animals. I didn’t want to frighten myself.

My point is that very much of the world is beautiful. Some of it is natural beauty created by technonic forces, volcanic forces, erosion, water, vegetation, and probably some things that aren’t popping into my head at the moment. Other beauty is created by humans, such as gorgeous architecture, art and gastronomic creations.

With all of this beauty, why do people so often have to screw things up? Not all people, of course. But some who make life worse for the rest of us. I’m not mentioning any names here, but some political leaders and titans of industry come to mind.

Parque San Martin

The lower station of the Cerra San Bernardo cable car is immediately across the street from a park, Parque San Martin. For those keeping score, that’s two days and two parks honouring General San Martin. The one in Salta is a small fraction* of the size of Parque General San Martin, which I visited in Mendoza yesterday.

Like the park in Mendoza, the one in Salta has a lake. Salta’s is much smaller, but it’s more irregularly shaped, making it much more attractive to my mind. And there’s a fountain jetting out of the lake in Parque San Martin in Salta.

Salta’s park has lots of trees, grass, and some benches. There’s also a small, two-aisle outdoor market where vendors sell mostly clothing and crafts. Some of it looks like it’s handmade, but there are also some mass-produced goods for sale in the stalls

* I admit to being guilty of doing it myself, but the stickler in me hates it when people (me included) say “a fraction of” when they mean “a small fraction of.” If object A is 999,999/1,000,00th of the size of object B, then object A is a fraction of the size of object B, but they’re close enough to the same size that you’d be forgiven for considering them to be equal. I suppose people usually mean a fraction with a one as the numerator, but a fraction is a fraction.

Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de la Viña

Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de la Viña, which was built in 1854, makes three churches in one day in Salta for me. There are more in Salta. Maybe I’ll see them tomorrow.

The design of the exterior of Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de la Viña is vaguely similar to the Basílica Menor y Convento San Franisco that I saw this morning. However, the bell tower of Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de la Viña is shorter and less distinctive than the one this morning.

And the exterior colours are different. The colours here are beige and pastel blue.

I liked, but not loved, the interior. It has an attractive ceiling with a pretty cupola. The columns are also nicely decorated.

I don’t know when the guidebook that told me about Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de la Viña was published, but in the listing for the church, it said that, at the time of research, it was closed for renovation.

It was open today.

Ha! If they’d deferred the renovations for a while, they could have joined the global “close things when Joel is in town” movement. I guess they didn’t get the memo.