Chapter X
The Smaller Intermont Valleys: The Live-stock Trade with Bolivia
The Calchaquí Valley and Poma
The physical setting of the village of Poma in the upper Calchaqui valley is not only picturesque but practical. It isa small settlement at an elevation of about 10,000 feet above the sea. On its west is the great mountain wall, surmounted by volcanoes, that forms the eastern border of the high and bleak Puna de Atacama. Its northern aspect includes the snowy peaks of Acay. On the east is a high and bold block of moun- tain country with smooth middle and upper slopes and deep- cut ravines at its foot (Fig. 65). The village is located on the western edge of the valley floor, and to the east of it and up and down valley are cultivated plots where barley is grown and irrigated alfalfa fields furnish forage for its live-stock industry.
From the whole northwest of Argentina there are sent an- nually to Bolivia at least 15,000 head of live stock, according to Guilberto Diaz, owner of the principal ranch or fica, La Poma, as it is called. They are driven from Catamarca, San Juan, Salta, and lesser border towns to summer in the alfalfa meadows at Poma, where a broad stretch of valley floor about five miles across and five miles up and down valley has been intensively irrigated and furnishes abundant pasture in well- kept alfalfa meadows. The 15,000 include in part 3000 mules, 4000 burros, 3000 cattle. They remain during December, January, and February and are then driven north into Bolivia. Apart from this industry and the cattle driving west- ward across the cordillera the town has no important outside business except the export of goatskins and salt. The manner in which one reaches the town serves to illustrate the difh- culties attending the trade.
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