After breakfast we packed and bid farewell to the other group.  They were headed over to Río Iruya to scout that out for research possibilities. I told them how to get there and the logistical problems of working in the area but assured them that there is no better place to work in the Sierras Subandinas.

We drove over to the Cianzo section again – a beautiful drive.  We stopped at the school in the hamlet of Palca de Aparzo to see if we could sleep there.  One of the teachers, Adriana, said the director was out of town but she didn’t think it would be a problem.  The kindergarten teachers were on strike so she put us up in the kindergarten building.

We went out to where we had parked yesterday and ate lunch.  The food is so much better in Argentina than it is in Bolivia!  After lunch we made the long ascent up the pediment surface to the base of the section.  We drilled four sites but the rocks were horrible.  We then had a long lateral offset.  A stiff, cool breeze buffeted us most of the afternoon.  Rich reported that the offset would take us to an area of continuous exposure.  Since it was already late, we decided to forego any further sampling until tomorrow. 
 

Strata at the base of the Casa Grande Formation exhibit relatively steep dips. The elevation here was nearly 4,000 m.

The hike down was long and aggravating.  I must have tripped on every rock and bush along the way. There is an interesting variety of cactus that is fairly abundant in this area. It has a filamentous, cotton-like growth that comes out of the top. It is quite pretty.
 

This catus is abundant in the area.

We got back to the school at dusk and set up camp.  We had a good pasta dinner and then called it a night. Pedro and I resumed our evening smoking conversation. It was very cold and windy outside so we were glad to be in the shelter of the school.