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| Balcarce Street, Salta Juan next to his new favourite drink - Fernet |
It was pitch black and quiet when we walked to the bus station to catch our 5:00am bus to Salta. Our goal: renew our visas, eat some empanadas, and take in a few sites that we missed on our last visit. Everything but renewing our visas happened. As it turned out we didn’t have to renew them. When we crossed the border from Uruguay into Argentina they were automatically renewed at no charge to our surprise. “I guess you’ll be saving some money”, the government clerk told me. Little did he know we’d prolonged our stay in Cafayate and spent money on an 8 hour-return bus ride to get there.
It was worth it though, I (Kelly) enjoyed the adventure and returning to a familiar place was a very interesting experience…especially considering we never get that sense of familiarity on this trip - we’re always going somewhere new. Once arriving back in Cafayate, we had lunch and grabbed the bags we had stored at our hostel and caught a bus to Tafi de Valle. We were very excited about this little mountain town. I always look forward to the next hostel we’ll stay in – thinking just maybe it will be better than the one before – and the new things we can see and do. With Tafi I had envisioned fresh mountain air, a cozy hostel and lots of great little shops and restaurants lining the main street with views of the mountains in the back. Two out of three ain’t bad. It was fresh alright, in fact it was downright cold! And the small town of Tafi is really only composed of two main streets with quaint restaurants and shops lining both sides as I had envisioned. The hostel on the other hand was not what I had hoped for, especially for the price. After staying at the Rusty-K in Cafayate this place felt like a rip-off. Our room was freezing and full of fruit flies and the bathroom stunk. What can you do? It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t comfortable either. Luckily our time in Tafi de Valle hiking, exploring an estancia near-by and eating great meals, made up for it.
Like most places, Tafi del Valle has a healthy population of stray dogs. I’m not exactly sure what it is but wherever we go they seem to take a liking to us - sitting beside us while we eat or drink, or just plainly following us around through town. One friendly pair decided to follow us the whole way up a mountain to a look-out point. Not sure who was more tired but one of the dogs was panting pretty hard once we reached the summit. It was beautiful up top – a large water reservoir in the distance, a narrow crevice cutting through the foothills on one side, and clouds seeming to overflow and cascade over the tops of the mountains. Kelly and I relaxed for a while until the dogs caught their breath and took in the site themselves.
Juan and I had heard about this estancia, Las Carreras, 13km outside of town that made their own cheese and supposedly had the best restaurant in the area, so the next day we caught a local bus and went to check it out. The estancia is located in a beautiful setting with rolling hills and cows grazing all around. Once we arrived we were given a tour of the cheese making facilities, but I wasn’t paying much attention, instead I was trying to figure out where on earth this restaurant was that all our guidebooks were talking about. We enquired and were promptly ushered through an employee’s entrance into the estancia itself where we found ourselves in a beautiful restaurant, which we had to ourselves. When we were handed a menu I was a little worried we’d have to leave when we saw the prices, but it was reasonable and Juan and I have become accustomed to sharing main dishes in pricier restaurants. We had a fabulous lunch of llama empanadas and a vicuña (looks like a small llama with hair instead of wool) stew. It was delicious! 
Apart from the chilly nights we enjoyed our 3 nights in Tafil del Valle. The people were really friendly and talked our ears off on many occasions. We also made some friends (i.e. the dogs) and found a new video game that we love. Now we’ll be searching for Puzzle Bubble along with Pac-Man whenever we spot an arcade.
I had been talking with an apartment broker about renting an apartment in Mendoza for one month starting just before the Easter long weekend, which is a very big deal here in Argentina. They celebrate Easter for a week, calling it Semana Santa (meaning Saint Week) – Mendoza supposedly gets very busy during this time and it’s tough to find accommodations. I was happy that we had something to go to once we got there. The problem was that I didn’t realize just how long it would take us to get to Mendoza. We arrived in Chilecito at 1:30am on the 18th and needed to be in Mendoza by the 20th, which was still a 15-hour bus ride away. We figured we’d have two nights in Chilecito and then head off to Mendoza the next day.
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| Fermentation Wine Tanks at La Riojana These hold 35,000 litres! |
As Kelly mentioned, we arrived in Chilecito late at night – so late that the first hostel we stopped at the night person must have fallen asleep because no one came to the door. Thankfully another place was around the corner and we found a private room there. The next morning we quickly made our way to the local winery in town, called La Riojana only to be denied entry because Kelly wasn’t wearing covered footwear. We came back later in our safety gear and got a pretty good tour through this mega winery which produces a whopping 40 million litres PER YEAR! During the tour we met an older couple from Cordoba that were driving up Ruta (route) 40 on the way to La Quiaca, a small town bordering Bolivia. The route starts at the southern tip of Patagonia and ends in Bolivia – they had started this journey 8 years ago and every year they travel a little bit further up it. We talked for a bit and they invited us to stay at their home in Cordoba when we make it there! This is a small example of the friendliness and hospitality of the people here in Argentina. We bought some Malbec and continued our city tour.
The rest of the day we spent by visiting a mining museum and figuring out our next moves to Mendoza (aka waiting for the ticket windows at the bus station to open). Mining was the foundation of Chilecito and its claim to fame is the 35km cable car that extended to La Mejicana, which sits at an altitude of 4603m – 3.5km above Chilecito. This monster project was completed by 1904 and was used until the 1930s. It is no longer in use, but the pictures of various stations along the 35km route show how treacherous it must have been to get to work, let alone build it! 
Our time in Chilecito was cut short with us realizing that to arrive in Mendoza on the 20th we would need to leave that evening at 9:30pm. To make matters worse I had just received an email from the agent in Mendoza that the owner of the apartment we were planning to rent just rented it out for the Easter long weekend to someone else at an extremely inflated price. We wouldn’t be able to rent it (if we still wanted it) until Monday – we were arriving on Wednesday. So that was it, we caught our bus to Mendoza that night with no idea of what we’d be doing next.
To Be Continued…
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| This one is friendly! |
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