Cafayate

We arrived on Sunday night in Cafayate, which is a really nice little town. It seems to be very touristic, but not many gringos. Either way, this means that places in hostels were quite few and far between. We did finally manage to find one with a double room for rather cheap, and located directly on the main square, so we jumped on the occasion. On our first night here, we randomly bumped into some people from the hostel back in Tucuman. We clearly weren't the only people who thought that city was a total waste of time.

In the morning, we were kicked out of the hostel, because other people had reserved, and the place was full, so we went walking around looking for another place to stay. The new place organised a couple of tours to see the sites around Cafayate, which are rather nice.

On Monday, we went to the Quebrada de Cafayate, which is a desert located just outside the town. We were told it was a going to be a trek, but really, it was just a bus ride. The guide would take us on a bus to one place, and then stop long enough for everyone to get out, take a few pictures. Frankly this was rather enjoyable, as there were a few stops where climbing on rocks was necessary in order to see everything. I had a really good time there.

One of the stops was called the amphitheater which is a sort of cave with really nice acoustics. Some local musicians have clearly picked up on this, as they were waiting for us when the bus pull up. As soon as we walked into the main part of the amphitheater, they started playing, and it sounded really nice.

This morning, we went on another trek to see the waterfalls of the Rio Colorado. Even though this was a more of a trek than the previous one, it still was not very taxing. The best part of it was all the rock climbing that was necessary. We had to go down really small tunnels and get into some pretty bizarre positions to get to see some of the waterfalls. The waterfalls themselves were not particularly nice, but I still had a really good time.

We got back in the afternoon, which gave us just enough time to try out some of the wineries of the area. The tours were far more interesting than the ones I had in Mendoza, as we actually got to see the grapes being unloaded from the trucks, and processed by the machines, as well as the wine being bottled. There were also some free wine samples at the end (which was my favorite part).

Tomorrow we plan on going to Salta as a stop off on our way to Jujuy. I am not sure how much there is to do in either of these places, but we will definately find something to keep us amused for a couple of days.