The rest of the Northwest

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So, after enjoying our brief stop in Salta, we continued our way southwards. We were hoping that going south might make the weather a bit cooler, but no such luck!! This is not going to be a long blog as there are too many fun things to do on this trip other than blogging, so hopefully the pictures and a brief summary will do! (Resolution: I will try to be a better blogger in the future...)

Cachi

The road from Salta to Cachi is very enjoyable, lots of mountains, switchbacks, farms, etc. We spent a few days in Cachi mostly relaxing. We had hoped to get in some big hikes with local guides, but in the end we just took some local afternoon hikes by ourselves. This area is gorgeous, at altitude and with very friendly locals. Just a shame that the tourist office isn´t better informed on hiking trails..!

Cafayate

Ahh... Cafayate... in the running as site of my future vineyard. A lovely little town with some great restaurants and bars. In itself that would make it a nice place, but the best bit is that it is home to high-altitude vineyards which produce some excellent wines. Within the town we were able to visit a few bodegas, take tours on the wine-making process (really put our Spanish to the test) and finally partake in tastings. We tasted superb Malbecs and Cabernets and I even enjoyed the local white (Torrontes) which is dry and very fruity. We had an excellent hostel (El Balcon) with a rooftop where we relaxed in the evenings with a glass of wine watching the sunset, swinging in the hammock, waiting for the thunder and lightning show to start. Perfect!

Cafayate is also blessed with mountains all around and on 2 days we went hiking along the Rio Colorado. A lovely setting, with perfect sunshine, large rock formations, clear water and finally waterfalls. A tough walk, but worth it to jump in the cool water at the end! And to top it all off, Cafayate is home to wine ice-cream - need I say more??

Tafi del Valle

Tafi proved to be a similar story to Cachi. We had hoped on some very serious hiking and once again found that things don´t always go to plan. We asked the local guides if they would take us into the mountains and they basically said no! We were disappointed as we had hoped to get to 4,500m (which would be our highest point yet). However, we quickly overcame the disappointment by hiking ourselves on the obvious paths we could see close to the town. This ended up being a good plan as we had one great trek up to a hill with a big cross overlooking the town before continuing upwards over some wonderful Brecon Beacon type hills. Tafi is already at quite some altitude as so any walking was good for our acclimatisation. On our second day we took a bus to the nearby town of El Mollar with its collection of old menhirs. We walked the 15km back to Tafi but found the weather to be less than perfect. Tafi experiences its own cool micro-climate. Good if you are a local wanting to escape the local heat, bad if you are a gringo yearning for more sun!

Tucuman

We had a 12 hour stopover in Tucuman as our journey continued southwards. It turned out to be a very pleasant city, with lots of ice-cream shops and nice cafes. We spent the afternoon siesta time in a massive park next to the main bus terminal - probably the nicest place in Tucuman. We were not really in a "city" mood though, and so I am afraid I cannot report anything on Tucuman museums as we failed to see any!

After that, a long overnight trip down to Cordoba (next blog)...

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