A perfect day in Cafayate!

A little goat at the Parador

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Our next tour took us to Cafayte which is south of Salta but still in the same province. On the way up the mountains we stopped at a parador for snacks and a bathroom break. There were also goats there, and a llama. As I enjoy animals, especially of the farm variety, I thought this was really neat. There were even Angora goats, the kind they make sweaters out of.

This tour was more scenery oriented and we spent a lot of time looking at mountains and rock formations. Once again, they were breathtaking. The rock formations came in many different shapes including the head of an elephant, windows, fingers of a giant, the Titanic, castles and of course, the throat of the devil. They were all very impressive but I most enjoyed the natural ampitheater. While it was no Red Rocks, it did have good acoustics and it was all carved out by water and rain over the years.

Me and a Llama

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Another stop we made was at a bodega called Vasija Secreta. We got to see where they gre their grapes and were given a tour of the wine-making facilities. We also got to taste the wine. Personally, I liked the sweetest one, a "rosado" (blush) much better than the white or red that we tried. I bought a bottle to share with Nelly and I kind of wish I had bought another to bring home with me.

A small side note, everything on these tours was kind of marketed as being local and traditional. Now, when you consider this, doesn't it seem strange that the "traditional" music we heard including a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence", not to mention a spirited rendition of The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody". Anyways...

The town of Cafayate was really pleasant. By the time we got there, the temperature was just right. A perfect 75-78 degrees if I had to guess. We had lunch and ice cream there and, of course, did a little more shopping. After that we headed back to Salta for our last night there.