The tour of the Quebreda de Cafayete consists of Christi, myself and two older women from Buenos Aries together with an English-speaking guide who drives us around in his own car. We take route 68 south initially through the lush, fertile Lerma valley which boasts a collection of small, parochial villages and farms growing tobacco and grazing cattle. We even spot a gaucho or two.
At Alemani, some 100km south of Salta, the scenery changes dramatically as we enter the Quebreda de Cafayete. Sedimentary rock is an easy target for water flowing down from the Andes, and the formations that have been created through the eons are quite spectacular. The area is also rich in minerals such as copper, iron, sulfur which add dramatic color to the spectacular scenery. In addition to the formations we see from the road, we stop to explore some of the larger, more famous ones, including Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s throat), Il Sapo (the toad), El Fraile (the friar), Los Castillos (the castles) and perhaps the most impressive of all, the water-eroded El Anfiteatro (the amphitheater).
As we approach Cafayete, the countryside changes back to lush, fertile valleys and we see an abundance of vineyards. Christi samples some malbec (red) and torrontes (white) wines at the Bodega Nanni (one of only four organic wineries in Argentina) and pronounces them de-licious. Delicious enough, in fact, to buy a bottle of the malbec. Lunch is the typical tourist affair – all the people we have so far avoided are corralled into the same overly busy restaurant. I have no idea why this is, other than the guide must receive a generous kickback. Still, the steak Christi and I share is large and rather tasty.
On the long drive back to Salta, talk switches to real life subjects. I ask why we encounter so many police check points on route 68. Our guide reluctantly explains that Salta province is a key transit point for drugs coming out of Bolivia and for the trafficking of girls into prostitution – and the town seems so nice at first blush!
Blog post written by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, laugh-wrenching tale
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