Great place with nice wine and great sceneries
Trip Start
Apr 22, 2010
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16
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Trip End
Aug 27, 2010
Cafayate, Northern Argentina, Argentina
Friday, May 7, 2010
We could easily have stayed 1 day more in Cafayate. We stayed here 2,5 days and had a great time here. 1 day for visiting the Quebrada de Cafayate and 1 day for visiting the Bodegas and taste some wines. And you could add one day to visit the waterfall.
To visit the Quebrada you can do it with a tour (from 2PM till 7PM) or rent a bike and take a bus 50 km further (direction Salta) and come back by bike. I would recommend the second option to enjoy the full day as the landscapes are just awesome. This is definitely one of the highlights of Argentina!
For the Bodegas you can rent a bike and do the tour. I can recommend Bodega de las Nubes (close to the start point of the walk of the waterfall) as the wine is really good and you get cheese offered as well.
For the Bodegas we got a bit mixed feelings as you only get to taste their young wines that aren't always the best. Don't expect to get much wine either :) But it is still a nice thing to do.
We couldn't do the walk to the waterfall due to really bad professionalism of the travel agency we rented the bikes with. This was really a pitty as we heard the long walk is really great. We had an appointment at 9:30 to get the bikes but at 10:30 the agency was still not open and when we finally got the bikes they gave us 1 crappy one that totally broke after 2 kilometers and we had to go back. The new bike was again crappy and I got a flat tire 1 km further. After this there was just no time enough to make the 5 hours walk up and down to the waterfall. Instead we went drinking some wine :)
For the place where we slept we can highly recommend a local guys place (Catamarca street 267) that we met at the bus station. Double rooms are new and cost less than the dorms you can find in the hostals.
RAQUEL
Cafayate me ha encantado, es un pueblecito viticola muy agradable donde podriamos haber estado una semana!! El primer dia hicimos un tour para visitar la Quebrada de Cafayate por la tarde, y quedamos gratamente sorprendidos, que paisajes! Y eso que en las guias no lo mencionan como un 'must', para nosostros definitivamente lo fue!
El segundo dia alquilamos unas bicis para ir a ver las cataratas del rio Colorado y de paso visitar las bodegas. Como las bicis que nos alquilaron en la agencia Puna estaban en pesimo estado, no pudimos ascender hasta la catarata, no nos dio tiempo. Asi que nos dedicamos a visitar las bodegas y una granja de cabras donde hacian quesos muy ricos (por cierto, muy interesante la visita). Compramos unas cinco-seis botellas, que hemos tenido que cargar durante varios dias, y eso que ya ibamos cargaditos como mulas!!
En fin, Cafayate no se puede dejar de visitar si se va a Argentina :o)
El tercer dia teniamos previsto partir hacia Salta, haciendo un tour con la agencia Puna en el que visitariamos todos los puntos interesantes al norte de Cafayate (principalmente la carretera que lleva a Cachi, un pueblecito). Sin embargo al no ser suficiente gente el tour no salio y tuvimos que cambiar nuestro plan, lo que nos hizo perder un par de dias: ir a Salta directamente en autobus y de alli explorar diferentes opciones para visitar la region...
Por cierto, una curiosidad, la carretera que pasa por Cafayate y Cachi, la Ruta Nacional 40 (RN 40) es la ruta que une el sur y el norte de Argentina, va desde la Patagonia hasta la Quiaca.
