Arrival at Cafayate

---

Today Started at 10:00 AM. I got up at 7:30 but it still requie me 2 plus hours to wash pack, ready my bike and check out of the residencis to start my ride. It was hard to leave Residencis Elena.

The hotel only cost $16.00 and I had this garden room with private bath and cable TV and all this in a beatiful setting. Salta had some great culture events to attend and good cheap resturants.

The planned route was to Cafayate with a distance of 190 kilometer. It was flat and a brise to ride.
Of course there would always be some difficulties. I found the traffic surpisingly heavy. The cars on the road as bacuse it was Saturaday and locals are out on a weekend trip. I was wong as I later found out.

At mid point I had lunch in a small town on route. I had a Sandwich Melinesa and fries. It is the best deal in any resturant in Argentina. This is a large breaded veal sandwich and a large portion of fried. With a Coke this usually run about $2.20.

Again as it alway repeat itself. I drew a crowd with my motorized bike. The waiter owner asked the questions and I had to answer the same question the crowd always also. Where I was from. Where did I get the bke. How many kilometer per liter and how fast it goes. I am tire of this but I cannot offend anybody by ignoring them.

The final stretch of the ride had a little rain. Blame it on El Nino. The touist attraction on this stretch is the redish canyons. It was really scenic and Had to share it with a lot of Argentoines tourist. As a note, I was dissapointed that the Argentineasn would deface their natural treasures with spray paint graffities and litter.

I remember Cafayate in my trip two years ago as being a really tranquile little tourist town. This time as I approach it looks like the hells angle have decended into Healsburg on 4th of July. There were motor bikes, cars, tents, and most of all cops everywhere. With all the loud music blarring I soon became apparent that I have ran into a musci festival. I was now desparte. Would I find a spare bed. I do not want to camp. I hate camping. After riding around town a few times I got lucky. I found the hostal I have targeted for stay and they had one bed left.

That night I shared the room with some lower middle class Argentinean familly. Usually the hostel room are fill with other traveler. This was unique. The familly edicate was diffeent from what I am use to in my travel. They took the matress off the beds and layed them on the floor. They did not care that the mattress was from a bed that was already clammed.

That night it rained in town but the festival was on high gear and the street crowd was in a party mood. I wanted to get into the stadium where the headliners were playing but I could not find the ticket both. I was looking for some peace and quite in this town that I knewn but still this festival was a nice suprise.

I ran into Martha again, She was the Spainish girl I meet in San Pedro the ATacama. We had a nice long talk about a lot of interesting subject. She is really intellegent in a lot of subjects.

So end this day

---