Honeymoon Day 28: Cafayate - Tilcara

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Cafayete is a cool little town, a lot more going on than Cachi. We´re glad we decided to stay there instead of Cachi as originally planned. We got dinner, hit the ATM then hit the hay.

The next morning we got on the road again, heading north back towards Salta. This time the road was paved the whole way, unlike the mostly dirt roads of the day before. The views were pretty epic, once again. Red rocks coming out of the earth at an angle, wide open washes and rivers.







On the way we stopped at a little canyon thing called Garganta del Diablo (devil´s throat), same name as the big waterfall in Iguazu. We had to take off our flip flops to scramble up the rocks.







After maybe an hour of pretty awesome scenery, the landscape flattened out and we were in farmland for a while until we hit Salta. It was pretty, but after the red rocks it didn´t seem like much. I guess I didn´t take any pictures.

In Salta we picked up our laundry as planned. We were down to zero clean clothes so that was a big success. We ate at a local buffet in Salta which I thought was awesome but Steph hated. So on average it got a 4.5/10.

After lunch and armed with clean clothes, we hit the road again, going towards JuJuy. This time the road wound up through some lush green mountains and along a steep valley. I guess we didn´t take any pictures, I think because the road was so narrow. The entire road was the width of one normal lane, but it was for two way traffic. I had to pull off to the side whenever someone was coming, and honked the horn around all the blind turns. A little nerve racking but fun nonetheless.

We did stop at a dam along the way for a quick photo.



We drove through Jujuy to see what it was all about, and we were met with some pretty hectic rush hour traffic. We didn´t see anything special so we got back on the highway as soon as we could.

Once past Jujuy the scenery got epic again. The road follows a valley with a wide river to one side, hardly any towns to speak of. We started seeing more colors in the hills as we headed north. We passed one town that had just gotten hit with a mud slide, with semi trucks buried above the tires in thick mud. Again, no photos. Blame Steph, I was driving.

We got to Tilcara right around dark, and we instantly liked the place. Just big enough to have the amenities we like to have (ATM, restaurants, shops) but small enough to explore on foot. We drove around to a few hostals until Steph found one she liked (¨Club Hostel¨, for the record) and we plopped there for the night.

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