Hotel Asturias Cafayate

... for lunch and a dip. It was great to be walking through the sort of country we'd been driving through previously, and although the water was very cold (only Evan swam) it was very beautiful. And we weren't the only ones mad enough to hike during siesta time - the hottest part of the day.

After a stop back in town to check out the famous wine-flavoured ice creams - both the torrontes (white) and cabernet (red) were very ...

... br>It was a wicked night (great company of course) and the dancing just made you want to get up and shake your booty. Thanks again SMM, I cant tell you how good the food was!!

So after being well fed and watered we climbed up unto our bunks like children on a sleepover and got ready for our next adventure...cowboy style.

The next day we were waved off by our Spanish mum and dad from the hostel (seriously two arms waving in the air!) and set ...

... the police!! They seemed reluctant to help at first but when they realised the car was totally muerte, are we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, they gave in and decided to help us out.



Whilst Rich, Steph and I got in the back of the police truck, Luke sat behind the wheel as the police towed the car back in to town. It was hilarious! Everyone in town was looking at us in the police car as if we had been arrested and we just couldnt actually ...

... crossing spots with stepping stones and that the trails that all the dumb tourists had made were the ones where it looked like you had to take off your socks and shoes and cross the river. Little did we know this was just the begining of our river crossing experiences. The town was nice, but by the time we got there we had to turn around so we could make it back to the 3:00 pm bus. So we get back, grab our stuff, eat hands down, the best empanadas of the trip, and ...

... deck and Claire sang some blarney into the bemused faces of the locals, I played my cavacinho. So we got the bottle of wine which made the last Jet Li film and a half much more enjoyable. Wine and Goats Cafayate is famous for itīs wine so we spent time here doing very little and looking forward to lunch. And then looking forward to dinner. We went on bodega tours and also a tour of a goats cheese farm/factory. There was another ...

Left Salta for Cafayate via Cachi on route 40 which runs from Bolivia to the bottom of Argentina following the Andes all the way down and it is mainly dirt road. the road wound itself around each mountain till you finally get to Cachi with some great scenary along the way. Got about 20kms down the road from Cachi heading towards Cafayate doing about 70kms when I heard a big bang under me and all of a sudden the BMW turned into a ...

... a one-day tour (15 hours in a jeep) of the northern loop, it would cost more than renting a little buzz box for four days. We were assured by the rental company that the roads we planned to go on were in parts not paved but perfectly navigable and we would be okay if we drove carefully We picked up the car at 11am, figured out the carseat (which with its age might have been more dangerous than going without but at least Patrick could see out the window ...

Noch d**a nachti in tucuman bin i denn am morga fruea ufbrocha noch Cafayate - bin schu am 4i wach xsi das hostel halt - am morga am 6i isch denn dr bus noch cafayate kfahra halt wied** a busfahrt vu 6.5 stunda ab** d**mol imana colletivo so an bus wo wu**klich nuet schons isch... ab** egal dafu** isch landschaft bi d**a busfahrt eifach nur gigantisch xsi. am afang in tucuman isches no so halbwueschti xsi, denn noch kurz** zit isches so halb tropisch ...

... looked alright, so we hired a couple of mountain bikes for a ridiculous amount of money (70 pesos for the day, what we paid for our hostel !), and headed out of town. On the way we picked up some picnic food from the supermarket, and then headed out to find the goats cheese farm. We had to take a few dirt roads to get to the farm, which took us past some lovely looking vineyards, making us ...

... to the station was well lit and very safe. It was also nice and cool before the sun came up!

We got to the bus station with plenty of time, Katie investigated a few breakfast options, we loaded our large backpacks onto the bus (which looked ok) and grabbed our seats.

There wasn't much legroom on this (older) bus, so we just had to hope that whoever was sitting in front of us was kind enough not to fully recline.

When the clock hit 7 and still the seats were ...