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Published: August 6th 2010
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After leaving Buenos Aires, I headed back to Argentina’s second city, Córdoba, but as I have already been through Córdoba, there was no need to stay too long. The main reason for stopping at all was to break up the long journey from Buenos Aires to the northwest of the country, plus there were a few sites in the surrounding areas which I thought merited a stopover. Just outside of the city, high up in the Sierra Central (Argentina’s “other” mountain range besides the Andes) is the town of Alta Gracia. This mountain town made a refreshing change after being in the lowlands and on the coast of Brazil and Uruguay. The main attractions in the town were the Che Guevara house and museum, where he spent a large part of his younger years, and the Jesuit complex in the centre, which was later owned by a former Viceroy of the Rio de la Plata area. I have seen a lot of Jesuit buildings already, but this one was slightly different as it wasn’t in ruins, having been sold off rather than abandoned. After Alta Gracia, I wanted to visit the town of Villa General Belgrano, which was founded by German
sailors who survived the sinking of the Graf Spee in Montevideo Bay during WW2, and seemingly looks more like a Bavarian village than an Argentinean town. But unfortunately I ran out of time, which is a shame as they had a chocolate festival on at the time.
For my last day in the Córdoba area, I headed to the Quebrada del Condorito (Condor Chick Gorge) National Park. This was reasonably easy to get to on public transport, with the bus dropping me off seemingly in the middle of nowhere and the driver pointing me in the direction I needed to walk. 1km from the road was the visitors’ centre, and then another 8km past there, through stunning mountain and pampas scenery was the “Balcon Norte”, a viewing point over the gorge which Andean condors use as a training ground to teach their chicks to fly. I unfortunately didn’t see any condors, but the walk to the gorge and back was definitely worth it. The only minor problem was waiting for a bus to get back to Cordoba - the one I was expecting in the late afternoon never showed up, and the next scheduled one was 40 minutes late, so
I ended up waiting in the cold for quite some time.
Having finished in Córdoba Province, it was time to head into the Andean northwest of the country. The first stop, an 8 hour night bus away, was Tucumán, Argentina’s fifth biggest city and which is best known in Argentina for being the birthplace of Argentinean independence. I only spent 1 day in the city, but this was ample to see all it had to offer. Tucumán was more or less like most other Argentinean cities I’ve visited, with the only standout attraction being the Casa de la Independencia - a museum in the house where Argentina formally declared independence from Spain in 1816. The enormous 9 de Julio park was also worth the visit, especially a strange little museum in the middle devoted to the sugar industry (which used to be the main business in the area).
So having finished in Tucumán, the following day I took a 5 hour bus to the town of Cafayate, just over the regional border in the province of Salta. The bus journey was one of the most picturesque I’ve as yet taken. The road bended its way through the foothills
of the Andes until reaching the town of Tafí del Valle, which was surrounded by mountains and a lake. The road then makes its way to Cafayate, passing through scenic towns with mountain backdrops on both sides of the road.
Cafayate, and the surrounding area, is one of my favourite places that I’ve so far visited in Argentina. The town itself is pleasant enough, and is surrounded by hundreds of vineyards, which together represent the most important wine-producing region in Argentina after Mendoza. The town is my first proper sight of the Argentinean Andes, and it seems to fuse the Andean and more traditional Argentinean cultures together - one of the restaurants on the main square for example was selling llama steak in a Cabernet sauce.
I arrived quite late from Tucumán, but after finding a hostel I still had time to sort out bus tickets for the next day. As I’ve come a lot further north, it was a nice change for it not to get dark until 7 (compared to 5:30 in Buenos Aires), and of course it’s much warmer too, despite the higher altitude. The following day I visited the Quilmes ruins, about an hour away
from Cafayate back towards Tucumán. This area has poor public transport, with very few services, so I had to get the bus leaving Cafayate at 6am, which dropped my off 5km from the ruins at 7am, in the pitch black. Luckily there was a full moon, so it was easy to follow the dirt track that led to the ruins, and by 8am the sun had began to rise. The landscape was stunning - a mountainous backdrop with cactus-filled desert on both sides of the track. By the time I got to Quilmes, it had just opened and I had the place to myself to explore. Quilmes was the home to the Quilmes Indians, who were never conquered by the Incas and put up the longest struggle of any group in South America against Spanish control. But eventually the Spanish defeated them and sent the survivors to Buenos Aires (on foot - many died on the way). I doubt whether the fact that an area of Buenos Aires, a football team and Argentina’s most popular brand of beer are named after the Quilmes is any recompense to the descendants of the few survivors. Walking around the ruins was interesting, though
there were no guides to ask questions to and few signs. The views from the ruined houses on top of one side of the hill that overlooked the city, and from the fortress on the opposing side of the hill were spectacular, and well worth the climb. I had just about seen everything I wanted to before I had to leave. I couldn’t afford to miss the next bus, as if I did the next one after that would be a five hour wait.
Back in Cafayate by early afternoon, I had time to visit Los Medianos - a large area of sand dunes just outside the town. The walk there and back took rather longer than I had anticipated, but it was very scenic passing different vineyards. The dunes themselves covered such an extensive area that I only explored a small fraction. But the whole area was very beautiful with dunes as far as the eye can see and mountains in the background.
The following day I set off to visit the Quebrada de Cafayate (Cafayate Gorge). The main road from Cafayate to Salta follows the gorge, so public transport was a bit more frequent (about 5
buses in each direction a day). I got off the bus 50km from Cafayate at “The Devil’s Throat” - a strange rock formation in the edge of the gorge and then spent the next four and a half hours walking back towards Cafayate exploring the gorge and the different rock formations. The walk was incredibly scenic (judge for yourself from the photos) but by mid-afternoon I was ready to head back to Cafayate.
Back in town in the late afternoon, I headed to the Santa Teresa Hill; one of the many hill overlooking Cafayate, but the easiest to climb. On a normal day, I’m sure that the views from the top would be fantastic, but on the day I climbed it, the wind was incredibly strong, meaning the air was so filled with dust that I couldn’t see the far end of town, let alone the mountains on the other side. But the view was still worth the short climb.
Cafayate and the surrounding areas were really beautiful - I could have spent much longer there I’m sure. But it was time to move on - the next stop will now be the city of Salta and the surrounding
area. The next blog will come from there.
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