Northwest Argentina

We landed in Buenos Aires after an overnight flight, and caught the shuttle bus from the International airport, crossing the city to the domestic airport. Our first night was spent in Salta and we slept very well. ;-)

The next morning, our rental car was brought to our B&B outside the city, and we spent the first hour driving around town trying to find an ATM that would accept our card, so we could get local pesos. No luck there, so I went into a supermarket chain that we recognized, while Steve stayed in the car, parked at the curb with his flashers on (it was not a designated parking zone), and bought a 2 liter bottle of water (for 68 cents) with a credit card, because I wasn’t sure if they’d take US dollars. So, thus fortified, we headed down the road to Cafayate, a drive of 135 km (84 miles) that took 4 hours (taking into account the ATM search, as well as photography).

Initially the scenery was of small rural towns, but it later morphed into the Argentinian version of Utah.

The tan stripe at the bottom of the hill on the left is a river. All the rivers that we’ve seen throughout the northern half of the country (even by air) are brown. Across the road from the vista above, was another common Argentinean sight - vineyards worked into every little bit of arable ground:

I liked this next shot just for all the pretty colors -

On the right, in the next picture is another brown river, along with the beautifully colored hills:

Turning 180 degrees, while standing in the same spot, you can see where we had come from:

This highway (and I use the term very loosely) had frequent areas of dirt and rock slides, that were sometimes graded smooth and open to 2 lanes of traffic, but more often than not, there was only one passable lane, as shown above.

As we continued down the road, we were treated to colorful rock formations (seen above and below) that reminded us of Utah or the Grand Canyon.

This formation that was dubbed “the castles” definitely reminded us of Bryce Canyon:

We happily settled into the Wine Resort of Cafayate, with this view out our back balcony:

…and this out our front door -

We really enjoyed the winery tours and tasting that we attended in the Cafayate region, especially the white wine, Torrontes, and the red, Malbec. The views from the vineyards were sweet!

I’ll try and send another post soon!