Cafayate

On Friday evening I arrived in Cafayate, which is a small town known for its wine (it's Argentina's number two wine production centre after Mendoza). I made a good choice of hostel this time - I stayed at Hostel El Balcón, which is named after its balcony (or roof terrace) with a view. On the first night I met some people in the hostel, and we decided to go out to get some wine ice cream, which Cafayate is also famous for. I chose the cabernet, and some of the others went for the torrentés, but to be honest both of them tasted pretty awful - I don't think wine and ice cream are meant to go together.

Unfortunately the wine tasting tour I mentioned in my last post didn't go ahead. The reason we were given was that the vineyards are closed on Saturday, but I think you could call that a blatant lie, because the opening times are displayed at the tourist information centre, and the vineyards are clearly open every day. I think the real reason was that not enough people had signed up for the tour, and I don't know why they didn't just say that!

The good news is that there were enough takers for the canyon hike in the Quebrada de Cafayate on Saturday afternoon, so that did go ahead. The canyon is pretty spectacular, but the photos don't really do it justice.

There are a few more photos in my April 2010 album. There are some interesting rock formations, including one that looks a bit like a train and one that looks like a toad. For some reason the guide also made each of us jump in the air (photo here). Unfortunately the weather wasn't too great on Saturday, but at the last minute the sun did come out, creating a nice sunset.

Then on Sunday I went to Quilmes, which is a ruined pre-Incan city about 35 miles south of Cafayate. I went with Lisa, who's an American girl I met at the hostel. Lisa is fluent in Spanish, having worked for the last two years in Chile and Argentina, which came in very helpful. We could have got a taxi to the ruins, which would have cost AR$120 (£20) and given us only one hour there, but in the interests of saving money, we chose a more complicated route. We got a public bus to the Quilmes turn-off, from where we got a ride on the back of a beaten-up Ford pickup truck the last 3 miles to the ruins. This photo shows one of the views we got of Quilmes.

There are some more photos here and here. After spending a couple of hours there, the next problem was how to get back to Cafayate. Luckily, Lisa soon managed to sweet-talk us a lift with a Brazilian man in a 4x4. She wasn't going back to Cafayate, so we dropped her off at the turn-off, and then I got a free ride all the way back to Cafayate. The Brazilian man's name was Wilson, and it turned out that he spoke fluent English and had two sons living in London, so we had plenty to talk about on the way back.

I arrived in Cafayate in time to catch my bus to Salta, which is my last destination in Argentina before I head to Chile.