I would need to pull out the ol` thesaurus for words to describe the beauty of Cafayate... What a place. I took a full-day (and I mean full day... 7am - 7pm) tour for cheap cheap cheap thanks to my amigo at the hostel in Salta, and I was so glad I did.
The region has a landscape unlike any I have seen before. The rock mountains stretch into the sky, climbing as we do in our little mini-bus and going on for what seems like forever. At first, I was impressed with the half-rock, half-vegetation formations, not knowing that soon I would be smacked in the face with the full fervour of desert Argentina.
Cacti were scattered across the rocky outcrops, and occasionally we would come across the odd shack or small "village" of houses made from mud bricks, with some washing hanging out or a random llama tied up in the "backyard". I wish I got a photo of that but alas... I was so tired I could barely get the mountains in focus.
I slept for much of the time before the mountains, still not having caught up from sleep from Saturday night or the horseriding adventure the day before. I had tried to get to bed earlier the night before, but I kept finding things to do... in the end, I feel asleep while my Columbian artesan friend from my room braided some colours into my hair. It was the only way I could get it done.
We stopped at a couple of the touristy spots - Garganta del Diablo (The Devil`s Throat), some other beautiful valley - and the guide pointed out certain formations that looked like things... this is the Titanic, this is a frog, that is an old woman`s face who died here a while ago (that one was harder to believe)...
I am sure I took entirely too many photos. Once in Cafayate, we stopped at the winery for a tasting after lunch (NOT included in the tour price, grr) and a browse around the town. It was small, not much going on, mainly for tourists, but me and a new Norwegian friend I found a cute artesan market where I bought some llama earrings. Splurge! haha
On the way home, I saw a Doberman wearing a human jumper. That was weird. Besides that, all was well and I returned over 12 hours after we left. Well worth the dinero methinks. Although lunch would have been nice. I gotta get over that.
Anyway, I got back to the hostel and picked up a few things from my backpack before heading off to meet my CS friend from San Lorenzo, a town about 20 mins out of Salta. I planned to stay there a couple of nights because I needed to save money but also I wanted to see SL, and chill out a bit. It was necessary at this point.
So I said a temporary goodbye to Salta and headed off with my new friends. The couple were lovely and their house pretty impressive. SL is a lovely suburb, I could tell we were in a bit of spivvy part of the country when the toilet was able to flush toilet paper properly. Ahh, the little things.
It was an early night for this little one, who knew what adventures lay ahead for me the next 2 days... And really, I needed SLEEP.
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