Advertisement
Published: August 15th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Cafayate
The wine region (Steve) I got a dodgy stomach as soon as we arrived in Chile so the bus journey to Salta in Argentina was an ‘interesting’ 12 hours, my stomach rumbling all the way and I had to avoiding the toilet at all costs. I think a broke a record!
The scenery whilst driving across was very dramatic. Huge open spaces very desolate, cold and windy. As the evening drew in we crossed the badlands of Argentina, the bus sank down into huge canyons and weaved its way around.
Eventually, we made it to Salta which is in the north of Argentina. It’s a reasonable sized city, busy and noisy, something we haven’t witnessed in a while. The first meal when we arrived was of course going to be a filet steak, only to be told they didn’t have any. Shock horror!!
We spent a few days shopping around town and sitting in cafes eating and drinking. There is a great drink out here call a Submarino, basically a glass of hot milk and a chocolate bar on the side which you drop into the milk, nice.
We arrive into Cafayate - a small town with large town square. There wasn’t
Cafayate
Kitchen was busy so we cooked on the fireplace, genius! much happening in town. It felt like we were out of a holiday season or something? Surrounding the town was a number of Bagoda’s (Winery’s). This particular region is famous for its white wine. Apart from Bagoda’s the town also seemed to have a large number of butchers and vegetable shops. So obviously we took advantage of the fact and bought lots of meat and veg. Along with the Irish couple, we decided it best to cook at the hostel as it would more economic. It was really cheap!
Kelly wasn’t feeling too good when we arrived. So laid up in bed for a bit, I went out with the Irish couple to sample some of the wine tours. We were mainly driven around to mediocre winery’s rushed though their tours and given the odd glass of wine. It wasn't too great.
So, when Kelly got better we decided to go out on our own to another bagoda. It was a lot better, first of all the guide could speak English (so we knew what everything was) plus he seemed much more interested in what he was doing and was proud to show us around. At the end we
Buenos Aires
Our room was painted by a local graffiti artist sampled nearly every wine they made - and we were give large quantities too. We left 'happy' and took a few bottles for our onward journey.
A couple of days later we jumped on another bus heading for Buenos Aires. The ride was due to take 17 hours. Although it actually took 24, because we got stuck on a highway at 5am and didn’t move 7 hours!
We arrived into Buenos Aires and headed to a part of town called San Talmo, where we had booked a lovely hostel called the Art House. It was rather trendy with all the rooms being painted by various local artists. Our room had a graffiti style which was cool. Walking around town later I noticed some of the graffiti on buildings similar to what was in our room. So our room was authentic!
We spent most of our time in Buenos Aires hanging out with the Irish couple, eating fine food and drinking fine wine. We was introduced to a Tenador Libre (all you can eat) restaurants that are popular around the city. Wicked food laid out with a large Parrilla (grill) at the end where you order what meat you want.
Buenos Aires
A Tango show. You can eat as much as you want for as long as you want for round about £3. Perfect for the budgeting traveller!
We also ventured over to the posh and trendy part of town called Palermo, kind of Soho/Chelsea area. Cobbled streets with fine shopping and great bars and restaurants, and we went to a Tango show, which is very popular in Buenos Aires.
So after dossing around for a few days we eventually got off our backsides and booked our bus up north to Puerto Iguazu. We took a better class of bus for this journey, Cama as it's known. The bus has much larger seats and they go back to almost flat making it a lot easier to sleep. You get fed half decent meals plus free wine and on some buses even Champagne! This journey took us 17 hours. We arrived in Puerto Iguazu and stayed in town for a few nights. The weather was much nicer, almost tropical, our hostel had a large number of humming birds flying around the place?
The trip was definitely worth the journey though. Iguazu falls sits on the boarder of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The falls are
Puerto Iguazu
A classic shot of the Argentinian falls visible from Brazil and Argentina and most people visit both sides as they are completely different experiences. We have seen many waterfalls already on this trip but Iguazu is just out of this world, not one waterfall but loads and loads and they are just huge and the noise they make is almost defining.
We spent the day wandering around the walk-ways that go along the top and bottom of the falls where you can get great close up views. Also got soaked standing under one of the larger falls (see the picture at the top). Truly gob smacking!
The following day we headed over to the Brazilian side....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.149s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 94; dbt: 0.0985s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Gary
non-member comment
So how the hell did you get David Blunkett to cook you dinner in the hostel in Cafayete??