Quilmes and Cafayate
Another sleeper bus up to Tucuman in the NorthWest of Argentina and a change of scenery (beginning of cacti lands). Tucuman is the biggest city in the NorthWest region, but we didn´t stop there, instead getting a taxi / tour through the Calchaquies valleys to Quilmes and Cafayate.
The ruinas de Quilmes are ruins of a pre-inca society (the Diaguita) which was one of the last to hold out against the Spaniards. They eventually were defeated and marched to Buenos Aires in the late 1700´s. The city was built up a mountainside, with almost all the buildings interlocking. They think that the chief lived at the top, and the pyramid of society roughly followed the shape of the city as it spread down the mountainside. Only 15% of it has been excavated so far, but even so it is quite big and very impressive. That said, we did find the huge cacti as impressive as the ruinas themselves (as did the majority of other visitors judging by where people were pointing their cameras!!)
Then on to Cafayate which is a pleasant little town surrounded by mountains and vineyards. Sampled the local speciality which is a white (for a change) – Torrentes. Smells like it is going to be very sweet, but is actually fairly dry. The vineyards here look more convincing than around Mendoza. Here you have rows of vines leading into the lush green foothills of the mountains, whereas in Lujan de Cuyo the landscape is pretty industrial and the vines grow up to the local oil refinery (with its cloud of brown smoke above it) and the other factories etc of a big city. Its not quite the image of pristine Andean air that they try and suggest in their marketing!!
Tags: Argentina, Travel
Jenni
Quilmes – we drank rather a lot of that from what I recall!