La Rioja, Tucuman - Cafayate

It is 4.30 pm and the town of Cafayate is sleeping away its siesta, we find ourselves again in a beautiful little town - this time in the province of Salta. From Valle Fertil we travelled north to a town called La Rioja, a small town but not small enough have the feel that we are looking for - so only stayed for one night in very strange lodging on the ende of town centre...it was run by an old lady as thin as anything with a voice so quiet you had to almost stop your breath to catch what she was saying. The place was as hot a an oven, even in the evening when it was quite pleasant outside, and natural light must have been a big no no to this lady as she kept pulling the curtains shut around the place.

The next morning we took a bus to Tucuman, the 5th largest city in Argentina - so none of that small town feel there. It was a nice town though, and didnt feel quite as big as is really was. The town was also spotted with beautiful architecture and around the plaza many stools selling local artesania.

On wednesday we headed finally towards a small town of Tafi del Valle, hidden in a valley among the andes as the name suggests. It was a pretty wee place, surrounded by the greenest hills and the streets filled with shops selling beautiful crafts, ice cream and the famous empañadas - which Brett has been lucky enough to have tons along the way, where Ive only had the priviledge of tasting one vegetarian one - yum!! Here we were lucky enough to find a very cute mountain cabin for the night for the same price as the hostel - well really it found us, as the owner practically chased us down the street as we were walking with our pack to come and have a look at the place, we had a look went to compare with the hostel and returned, as the wee place with whitewashed walls had already spoken to us both. Tafi felt quite like being in NewZealand, the hills and the mountain air felt just like being in a hidden spot not far from home, and for this although it was a picture perfect wee place we felt as we need to, once again, keep moving on.

Yesterday we found ourselves in Amaicha del Valle - not far from Tafi, but a lot lot smaller, and with a definate feel of being far away...the town roads were all dry grvael, with clouds of dust hovering behind scooters and cars driving along. We ended up sucking up and decided to give camping another go - and so glad we did as we found a great campground - showers with warm water and no toads around ;) Once again we managed also to borrow a pot to cook our meal - might pay to get one our own I suppose... We met lots of lovely people at the campground, and also managed to get a local señor to take us to the nearby Quilmes ruines of local indigeneous peoples of the same name and afterwards up to Cafayate.

Mariano - our chaufer for the day - turned up nice and early to pick us up, prepared with a piece of rope to tie down the boot of his car as we had told him we had 4big packs...it was no problema - he jsut chukced the pack in the boot one on top of another push the boots shut to about half way as it would not close no more, and tied it up with the rope. Along some of the bumpiest bits of the road we had to have a few glances back, just to make sure we didnt leave anything behind...The ruins were very impressive - a whole village of remains of stone buildings, wach towers built up in the mountain and almost the whole wall of the town still remaining. We were told after all our amazement that 50% of the town was reconstructed in the 1970s, a fact that did not make our amazement fade - it was incredible to imagine the life of the people in this hidden valley so long ago. The heat of the day along with the altitude - although only that of 1900m - made it harder than we thought to climb up the hill, but good practise for what lies ahead...


Now we find ourselves camping yet another night in a very established campground only a few blocks from the centre of Cafayate. The heat is still intense, but we got ourselves a wee shady spot and count on the temperature lowering overnight again. Tomorrow we will hopefully find a waterfall that we heard lies along the river not far from town, and perhaps even get ourselves a taste of local wine, as the town if covered in wineries...