Cafayate, Salta, and the Road to Cachi

I spent a relaxing few days in the little town of Cafayate. Other than the plaza (every town in Argentina has them - very Spanish!) and going for a nice walk into the countryside to see the vineyards the town didn't have much to do. Might have been more exciting but the two nights I was there, there was no one else in my 6-bedroom dorm (same as San Marcos).

Vineyard in town where I did a wine tasting

And then to the bigger northern city of Salta. I can't say I liked the town much (was kind of a dirty, less interesting version of Cordoba) but the hostel was full of people from Holland and France, and meeting cool people definitely makes a stay in any town better.


View of front of hostel

 

Plaza 9 de Julio

Cable-car ride up Cerro San Bernardo overlooking Salta

Sad to say but I think the most interesting part of Salta was leaving the city for the day and taking a tour to the small southwest town of Cachi. The drive each way was almost 4 hours, so we only stopped for a few hours in the town to look around and eat lunch, but there was lots of great sites to see along the way, including the multi-coloured mountains, winding Cuesta del Obispo mountain pass up to the 3,457m top of the Calchaquies Valley, and Parque Nacional Los Cardones, which has the most cacti in the world and the Andes Mountains in the background!