Blogs from Cafayate, Salta, Argentina, South America
March 5th 2012
Left salta rafting and drove on towards Cafayate in the wine region. We stopped off on the way to buy some meat for a BBQ which was going to be cooked later around the camp fire. We decided to join forces with Ivan, Dave and a few others in buying meat on the basis that they understood the decent cuts. We found a cafe and sat in the open with a coffee for about 20 minutes while the groups cooking over the next couple of days did their shopping. On arrival, we looked at an upgrade option to hotel/hostel but it would have been a longish walk from the campsite with our baggage. The campsite was all dry sand and a bit dishevelled and messy with a few dogs roaming around but the toilets and showers ... read more
Cafayate, the great outdoors
Published: October 23rd 2011South America » Argentina » Salta » Cafayate
October 22nd 2011
As I already mentioned, the bus-trip to Cafayate was the most impressive so far. We crossed the Calchaquí mountains that ranged from a jungle to a desert and Cafayate is beautifully set within the Calchaquí Valley and surrounded by vineyards. From our hostel rooftop terrace we had a nice view of all the mountains around us. The city itself is quite small and touristy but very cute and intriguing. There were lots of arts and craft stores and we strolled through the stands and checked out the variety of things they offered: jewelery, ceramics, clothes, maté tea cups, pastries, goat cheese, all kinds of stuff. Cafayate is famous for two things: nature and wine. On our first day, we booked a guided tour through the Quebrada, which is the very colorful valley around Cafayate. The stones ... read more
September 12th 2011
We arrived in Cafayate and checked into our lovely little hostel called Rusty-K. We didn´t get up to much that evening. However, the next morning we hired bikes from the hostel and embarked on a tour of the numerous local wineries (bodega´s). The great thing about Cafayate was that the wineries were really close to one another, which meant that Hayley spent less time on a bike, which ultimately lead to reduced risk of being run over. Our first stop was a place that made it´s own goats cheese. We weren´t given a tour of the place, instead we were just handed 3 small peices of cheese each to taste. We bought a block of goat and Oregano cheese for later and headed onwards and upwards. Over the course of the day we visited about 6 ... read more
August 13th 2011
An easy day trip from Cafayate, the Quebrada de las Conchas was incredible. Cafayate has sunshine all year round, and under a clear blue sky, this vast, colourful geologists dream was fantastic. Meaning "valley of the shells", Quebrada de las Conchas has been formed over many many years and used to be underwater, hence there are shell fossils. The landscape is so different from anything else we had seen in Argentina. Our guide told us that Argentina is like five countries in one because it has so many different types of terrain. The only three things the same across Argentina are Spanish, the flag, and a passion for football according to our guide! Quebrada de las Conchas was almost desert like, with cacti and dry land, and colourful soft rock. We hired a driver for the ... read more
August 12th 2011
We arrived in Cafayate in the evening and luckily for us, the Rusty K hostel had a room for us. As we got off the bus we were approached by many people offering us rooms, but we wanted to go our own way and look for the recommended Lonely Planet hostel. It being very cold, we went to the main plaza in search of the warmest looking restaurant we could find! El Rancho did the trick, the restaurant with a fire! A hot bowl of Locro - a meat and corn stew, filled and warmed us up before we headed to bed wearing many layers! Cafayate, with it's slower pace of life was a great place to stroll around and it's hard to get lost because it's so small! There was a beautiful main square with ... read more
July 18th 2011
Joff: We woke early and headed to Anta car hire to collect our Ford Ka "Hilda" we decided that it should have a Spanish name and as it was ridiculously small it had to be a girl. Having been through all the checks paid our cash and fitted 1 bag into the boot we left the sanctuary of the garage and headed out into the busy streets of Salta. In spite of being early everyone and his dog seemed to be out shopping or for a drive so I was sweating before we came to the first real junction. In spite of the chaos we made it out of town and towards Cachi. When we had been told that the scenery would be spectucular and that we would have to drive at 30kmph as the roads ... read more
Don't forget your mate when you go to Cafayate!
Published: July 5th 2011South America » Argentina » Salta » Cafayate
July 4th 2011
We have left Villa de Las Rosas, said "hasta pronto" to our Argentine family and now are "UP NORT" in the providence of Salta. Many people told us that this was the place to come for our vacation (and coming north would get us a little warmer weather... very appealing) so here we are! To get here we took a 4 hour bus ride from Villa de Las Rosas to Cordoba. From Cordoba we took an overnight bus 12 hours north to Salta, the capital of Salta. We are staying in Salta, along with Dale (Sparta Principal) and Chris (Elementary School Prinicpal from Virgina) and are able to take day trips from here to some other "must see" spots. Our first stop.... Cafayate! The day trip to Cafayate was amazing. We took off with a group ... read more
Wine, Goat Cheese, Mountains and Diego - Cafayate, My Kind of Place
Published: July 31st 2011South America » Argentina » Salta » Cafayate
June 27th 2011
Oh Cafayate.... I am writing this a month after I was there and yet the memories of the place and how superb it was are still ripe and fresh. Cafayate is a three hour journey south through an Andean basin south of Salta. It is the smaller of Argentina's two main wine regions. The mountains scenery got harsher as we travelled, the mountains sharper and the volume of their colours increasing. It was an incredible bus journey and could probably be sold (and probably is) as a tour. We arrived in Cafayate and found Mark and Sarah in a hostel just off the central plaza. We caught up briefly and heard what Mark and Sarah had been up to the past couple of days before heading to our first vineyard. After the heavy night previously, this ... read more
Ice Cream flavour of the week....
Published: June 26th 2011South America » Argentina » Salta » Cafayate
June 25th 2011
Arrived in Cafayate after another picturesque journey through the mountains - only issue for me was that Gordon had calculated it would take 2.5 hours (it took 5.5 hours) and we had no food for the journey! Cafayate is quite a small town surrounded by mountains. Our hostel was refreshingly clean after the last two and we had a nice double bedroom, with shared bathroom (but nobody else in the bit that we would have shared with so in effect to ourselves). The town had a really nice feel about it and we both instantly liked it and reserved another night at the hostel. The next morning we took a tour (basically, a man in a car and an Arsenal top took us for a 45 minute drive!) to Quilmers. Here there are ruins of a ... read more
April 7th 2011
We had wanted to go see the Quilmes ruins near Amaicha and spend the night there but time, money and the local bus schedule were not on our side so we decided to skip it. We had all been, or were going to Machu Picchu, so weren’t massively disappointed! The description in the guidebook was also a little off-putting – “Be prepared for intense sun with no shade and a large fly population keen on exploring your facial orifices.” Tempting but no thanks! We did stop off in Amaicha for an hour for a bus connection, ate some Queso M sandwiches and laughed at Ian getting accosted by a crazy local guy telling him all about his trip to the States, photos and all. He really is a beacon for weirdoes! A few hours later and ... read more
