The road to Catchi
Ill as I was (and it was touch and go there for a while but I´m a fighter!) I roused myself at 6:30 the next morning to climb into the back of our 4×4 to start the trip to Catchi and Cafayate, just south of Salta.
Catchi and Cafayate themselves are small, quaint towns which are nice to visit but not particularly spectacular in themselves. What is spectacular however is the roads between them. The one lane two direction road to Catchi climbs terrifying blind hairpin bends over the moutains to a height of around 3800 meters before decending slightly to Catchi. It is beautiful and apparently taking the bus there is a sure fire way to quiet upset children – well Tucky was quiet.
After lunch in Catchi (for those not feeling too ill but still fighting bravely on) we set off on the fat more difficult road to Cafayate. This road is part of Ruta 40, the most famous highway in Argentina which runs more or less north to south of the country but it virtually unpassable in places. This was one of those places. The road was narrow and rocky and steep and blind and dusty, but stunning and whilst we felt rattled like bingo balls when we arrived in Cafayate after 5 hours on the road it was worth it. One of the last stops was a lunar like valley with strange spikey rock formations streatching as far as we could see, it was like being on another planet.
When we arrived in Cafayate we (Tucky and I and a young American couple also on the tour) went to visit one of the areas Bodegas, Nanni, as Cafayate is the wine making region of the north. It was one of the quickets tours ever but there was a tasting at the end which lets face it was really all we wanted.
We were installed that night in a B&B belonging to the drivers friend, which was fine alsthough I´m not sure we would really have had any other options and breakfast was actually provided by the service station accross the road! Anyway, feeling better risked dinner that night and explored the little town, not much to see but pleasant enough and in a lovely setting.
The next morning we headed to Quilmes, site of some pre-inca ruins. The Quilmes people had there land repossessed by the Spanish who wanted the minerals and valuable metals available for mining there. The Quilmes were then moved accross the country and made to resettle in Buenos Aires, only 500 out of an orriginal 3000 people survived the journey. There is now an area in Buenos Aires called Quilmes and it is where Argentinas more famous beer is brewed. The ruins were interesting enough but there were reconstructions on the original lines and it was hard to get that feeling of ancient wonder, not least because someone had thought it a good idea to build a hotel there too?! it was only 45 minutes outside Cafayate. So an hour there was enough.
Back to Cafayate for lunch then we started the last bit of our triangle, the road from Cafayate back to Salta.
The road was paved this time so progress was much quicker and smoother and on the way we stopped to visit a number of strange natural rock formations, like a rock that changed from a monkey to a man like an example of Darwins evolutionary theory and a huge cavern used in the summer as an orchestra concert hall.
We arrived back in Salta at about 5:00pm absolutely knackerred but it had been a really good trip and fortunately I was feeling fully better now and able to eat chocolate cake on the way home.
That night the four of us went to a restaurant called Jack and enjoyed the largest and one of the nices steaks we had had in Argentina. This was an important last steak supper as that night we were heading north to Bolivia.
Tags: Argentina, Cachi & Cafayate, Travel, Wine
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