Blogs from Cachi, Salta, Argentina, South America - page 2

Oh how plans change! I discovered that to get across to the northern side of Chile to go to the desert it will be a 2 week wait for a bus! I am already behind schedule so have decided that I will go straight to Bolivia once I have finished my exploration of this part of Argentina. We had another big BBQ here at the hostel on Saturday night and I met this German girl who had hired a car and offered to take me and the english guy (I had prev met in Mendoza) on an overnight trip to Cachi and back. Cachi is just a small town about 4 hours drive from here but it is the drive that is the best part. I can only describe it as a geologist´s wet dream! It ... read more

So today which was just a beautiful chilled out day. We were up at 6.30, collected by our bus at 7 and set out for Cachi, cachi is a small town west of Salta ( salta is the town we are staying in for the last 4 days, north west Argentina), The drive was amasing, we drove through valleys and gorges reaching 3500ft, these mountains are part of the Andes. There is one part that just takes your breath away, Its called the mountains of colour, it literally is full of colours, vivid reds, cobalt blues, mossy green, burnt oranges. There are several different minerals within in the mountain face, red is iron, blue is silver, green is cooper and yellow is sulpher, It was a really sunny bright day today so the mountains were alive ... read more

Cachi= beautiful. In a nutshell. The ride was absolutely amazing and I became in awe of how the vegetation could get from rainforest and ropical to desert. Although the experience was less than spectacular... there were no eye-opening conversations, or climbing things that made me feel exhilarated... I came to appreciate geology and wished there was a book on geology that I could get through to explain how mountains could look the way they do, and how cactus can grow so close to a mountain range, where it's not supposed to be a desert. Beware of snakes, black widow spiders. Also, remember to charge your camera... because you run out of batteries and don't get to take pictures. It's also quite wonderful to be alone. Everyone always asks me about it. I must admit, there are ... read more

After hours of driving on a dirty road from Cafayate to Cachi, I saw a sign "Casa de Campo La Paya", saying in French that it was the place where Europeans want to stay. An impulse of curiosity pushed me to explore that place even though I didn't necessarily want to end up in a French hangout. I thought that place would be a few kilometres from the turn but the dirt road was being endless. It was getting late and I was getting impatient to get somewhere as the night was starting to fall. I was about to turn around to continue my way to Cachi that was a few kilometres away when I started to see more signs announcing La Casa de Campo. I thought it was an abandonned house as everything was so ... read more

After Jake had recovered from food poisoning on the way back to Buenos Aires we headed back up to the north of Argentina, this time to Salta for the first of three scheduled stops on our way to Uyuni, Bolivia. After a 20 hour bus journey we arrived at our destination. Jake was feeling much better, however it was now Craig´s turn to endure food poisoning on a bus. We will spare the details, only to say that it was all very emotional. The first day of the excursion jake and daniel arose at 6.30am sharp to go ´back to the clouds´. Craig stayed in bed feeling rough as a badgers arse. The trip was amazing, reaching 4,200 metres above sea level. We learned that a road we had used in patagonia (the south) was the ... read more