Cafayate: Land of Wine, Beef and Red Sand Oatmeal

When: July 20-22, 2009.

Where: Chicken-Dog Campsite to Cafayate, Argentina

We left the Chicken-Dog Campsite early (6AM) and started towards Cafayate. I remember it was FREEZING in the truck and we were all wrapped in the blankets we'd bought in Buenos Aires. When I woke up and looked out the window I discovered that we were in a cloud going up a mountain! Pretty...

I saw my first non-zoo llama and when we stopped at a gas station we encountered a shop full of llama wear. We begged Fred and Jo to buy matching llama sweaters but no luck (the shop owner wouldn't lower the prices).

(Katja chillin' outside the llama wear shop)

Looking at the photos on my computer, this must be around the time that Tania, Abby and I started to rate the toilets we were forced to use. A '1' on the scale was the absolute worst (just be thankful I didn't take any pictures of the two 1's we actually encountered!) and a '5' was pure luxury.

(gas station: no toilet paper but otherwise not too bad...maybe a 3?)

(gas station: eeee gawd...um no toilet paper, no seat and thank goodness we can't see closer...um a 1.5/2?)

After our trip up into the mountains, we came back down into a valley and stopped at the Quilmes ruins. Some people chose to stay on the truck, but Sebastian, Abby and I decided to walk up and check them out. There were lots of cacti...

(Abby and Seb and a GIANT cactus)

(We couldn't read the signs but I'm sure they were telling us not to destroy the ruins...did you hear that Sebastian?? No destroying the ruins!!)

(Dead and alive cacti)

(Seeing if I could fit through a hole in the rock. Yup.)

(We all enjoyed finding a llama in the wall)

(Ruins: here's a 4.5. I remember it would have been a 5 if the toilet paper had been better quality)

We arrived in Cafayate and set up our tents in yet another dog-filled campsite just down the road from the wineries (As I'm sure you can tell, I'm not a fan of the dogs in S.A.).

THE HOFF!!

(The Hoff in action.)

The first wine tour we went on was in Spanish and was quite short. Jayson was nice enough to translate but really I think we were all ready to get to the tasting part.

(Part of me really wants to live in this building.)

Our second tour was at a very nice winery which was less modern wine factory and more traditional winery. The tour guide was very sweet (she said 'ya' at the end of every sentence) and Jayson jumped at the opportunity to drive her nuts. He grabbed Katja's video camera and filmed her talking for the entire tour! You could tell she was trying to be nice but probably would have slapped him if she could have.

We walked around the main square and then returned to the campsite where we sat around talking. Our discussion turned to the subject of our up-coming higher altitude destinations. Katja was very adamant that the one bottle of wine Jayson was drinking at the time was actually equivalent to about 4 bottles of wine due to the altitude. Altitude makes us cheap drunks. Good times.

That night we went out for a group dinner. Disgusting amounts of beef were eaten. We were given a Dragoman shout-out by the singer in the restaurant. After dinner some people managed to eat ice cream and Seb, Abby and I spent some time in an internet cafe. When we got back to the campsite Abby and I were a bit freaked out to see the Hoff surrounded by creepy looking campsite dogs. They followed me to and from the bathroom and I had to resort to throwing a boot at one.

The next morning I woke up to what I thought were the dogs ripping at the Hoff but quickly realized it was a sand storm. With every blow of the wind, sand came flying through the windows and into the tent! We quickly packed up the tents but there was already sand and grit everywhere.

We left the sandstorm behind and stopped for breakfast near some beautiful rock formations. Freddie made some tasty oatmeal (I wasn't allowed near the oatmeal after my previous watery disaster) and I was starved. Unfortunately, just as the oatmeal was ready, the sandstorm blew in.

(Red sand in my oatmeal? Not so yummy. Unfortunately, this wasn't the only red sand oatmeal on the trip...but that's a refuge story so you'll have to wait for it...)

The plan was to drive to outside Salta to do some rafting and zip-lining but when we arrived, we saw that the sandstorm had blown down many of the powerlines. At one point we couldn't continue down the road due to them. We had to turn around. Zip-lining was out. boohoo...off to the city of Salta we went. We arrived at our planned campsite to find that trees had been knocked down and the people who were staying there were moving all of their stuff to the washroom area to get out of the storm. We hung out in the truck while Jayson tried to find a hostel for us (thank the lord!).

(Jayson chatting with the local police about the downed power-lines.)

(Freddie with his HUGE steak and his HUGE beer)

Our hostel turned out to be pretty basic. Tania, Abby, Katja, Fred and I (along with some random Spanish guy) were in one room. No hot water. The heater did nothing. Over the next 3 days we managed to break the sink off the wall and the handle off the toilet. Oh Salta...

Next time: learn how to play the Salta vs. Hull game, hear how reading Anthony Keidis' autobiography aloud can be awkward and how we almost all went insane in the city of Salta.

I ♥ Amber.

(After I discovered I got kind of car sick on bumpy South American roads, I spent a lot of time sitting near the front of Amber, staring out this front window. Whoever I stole this pic from, nice photo!)

Date: July 15-19, 2009.

Where: B.A. to an estancia near Cordoba, Argentina.

Info: We met Amber at 6:45 AM. She was waiting for us across from the hotel in the dark. I don't what I had been expecting but she was huge! And crazy awesome. I was so excited, I threw my bag in the back and climbed in.

(Here she is folks! Meet Amber, my home for 6 weeks this summer. Even though she had a few issues, she still rocked.)

We all found seats and soon we were driving down the street and turning onto the huge Av. 9 de Julio (Abby and I were impressed!) and we were off! We passed the obelisco and waved goodbye to Buenos Aires. A while later we stopped for a break and Jayson explained how Amber worked and told us our jobs and cook groups,etc. I was put on recycling/hand sanitizer duty, which I later found out was the 'old person' job. Thanks a lot Jayson. (Although, I did get in a bit of trouble later in the trip due to not emptying the recycling bins....and I might have tried to blame it on Tania....heeheeheeooops! Love ya Tania!).

(Gas station lunch. We must have been quite a sight - 12 people jump off a big orange truck, pull out stools and tables and make lunch!)

At about noon we pulled over and found out that Amber was having some (alternator??) problems . Us passengers were dropped off at a gas station restaurant and Jayson took Amber to be fixed. For the next two hours we drank coffee, talked, watched early 90's music videos (Take That!) and looked at Mick's travel videos. When Jayson returned, we were off again and stopped a little while later at a supermercado. My cook group was on duty that night. Woohoo. The Girl Guide Leader (one of the other Canadians) took control and decided on chicken with rice for dinner. Johan and Freddie weren't thrilled with this and since they'd been on the truck since Rio, I felt they knew more about shopping in South American supermarkets than the rest of our group....That wasn't our last supermercado battle with the GGL...

(Johan has some mean meat arranging skills.)

Jayson and Mick found us a campsite that night so we didn't have to 'bush camp' (aka camping behind a gas station, which would have killed my parents to hear about). The campsite was pretty empty and kind of sketchy. After a tent demo, Abby and I got to putting up the Hoff. Yes, that's right - our tent was named David Hasselhoff (others included George Clooney, Tom Selleck, Johnny Depp). Later, Katja and I went for a shower only to be horrified when we found them (see picture below). They reminded me of the movie 'Saw' and were falling apart and gross. I somehow showered, while trying to avoid a huge spider and afterwards put on every single piece of warm clothing I had brought with me since it was FREEZING.

(TERRIFYING!)

Dinner was interesting and a bit stressful. Girl Guide Leader was freaking out about how the boys were chopping vegetables and meat in a variety of sizes and I had no idea how to make rice for 12 people. The stir-fry turned into a kind of stew but I don't think anyone minded. It was freezing so after cleaning up we pretty much all went to bed. The tent was comfortable but someone nearby was snoring SO LOUDLY that Abby and I couldn't stop laughing. Around 2AM a train went by right beside the campsite, lighting up the tent and shaking the ground. I was so cold I hid inside my sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep.

After a breakfast of watery oatmeal (sorry people, I also don't know how to make oatmeal for 12!) we were back on the road. The extremely flat scenery started to change and we started driving up into rolling hills. At some point, Mick honked the horn as another Dragoman truck drove by us in the opposite direction. We followed them steeper and steeper and finally turned off onto a narrow dirt road towards the estancia. The road was seriously narrow and I had visions of us rolling down the side of the hill, which would not have been a good start to my overlanding experience.

(one of the estancia dogs making himself at home on Sebastian's tent)

(The estancia farmhouse. We ended up sleeping in here after the first night because it was so frickin' cold.)

We found out that the other truck ('Cindy') would be leaving the next day and there would be a bbq (asado) that night to celebrate our arrival and their departure. Abby and I set up the Hoff in a field full of other Drago tents and horse crap. We wandered back to the farmhouse, where the owner explained what would be happening over the next two days. Abby declared he was 'mad as a box of frogs' (!!)(Abby, you rock!) and I felt like we'd stepped back in time when farm employees in aprons started handing us cups of tea. Bizarre.

(estancia owners)

(Argentinean bbq = Lots and lots of beef.)

(Amber and Cindy. Cindy people were kind of crazy. I'll bite my tongue and not write anything else about them!)

(Mick on the roof. I don't know why. Taking care of serious Dragoman business, obviously.)

(Dinner was delicious. Got to talk to some people who'd already been to the places we were headed. There was also a lot of wine)

After a night of beef, booze and more extremely loud snorers, we woke up to find the field beside the tents full of horses. The Cindy people packed up their stuff and left while we were having breakfast. Later we were each assigned a horse and the owner gave us a quick lesson on how to handle the horses. My horse was named Sal (Salt) and he pretty much followed in behind the other horses. The countryside was beautiful and I was amazed how the horses were able to pick their way through the rocky hillsides.

(Abby's darling horse, affectionately nicknamed Cow)

(Estancia owner giving us a lesson on how to ride a horse)

Oh Sal...how you didn't want to go on this ride. Apparently he'd been out the day before and just didn't want to cooperate. At one point he stopped and refused to continue down a hill. One of the riding instructors came by and gave him a slap on the butt. He immediately bolted down the hill with me holding on for dear life! Fun times...

(moo)

That night the estancia owner provided a wine tasting of local wines. We learned about Argentinean wine, beef and how his family came to own the land. I don't actually remember any of this information...perhaps due to the amount of wine we consumed that night. After dinner we continued drinking and Fred, Johan, Sebastian and Tania tried to teach me how to play poker. Somehow with Abby's colour strategy (2 reds = bet high) I managed to win. We slept on the floor of the kitchen that night. It was too cold to sleep in the tents!

The next day was our long ride. I was given a different horse (I guess Sal needed a rest). Floppy (ha!) was apparently one of the nicest horses to ride on the estancia (I was just hoping we wouldn't go flying down any more hillsides!). We rode across fields and down rocky hills. We stopped beside a stream for lunch and then continued up the mountain to the top. What a view.

(ride leader)

(Jayson looking all serious on his steed)

(I forced them to all look in the same direction before I took the photo)

At the end of the ride we ended up at the estancia's guest house (so gorgeous) where we were greeted with hot chocolate by the staff (again, weird). After a look around we were given a lassoing lesson and let loose on a group of poor little calves. I almost lassoed the practice tree trunk but got no where near the calves. Tania ended up lassoing a hoof and was declared the champion!

(Johan, Abby and Tania being all gaucho)

We returned to the farmhouse by pickup to find that Amber and Mick were gone. He'd taken her to town to get the brakes fixed (always a good idea). Unfortunately, dinner was in the fridge on the truck so we did the smart thing and started drinking. A local singer came to perform and Jayson couldn't resist borrowing his guitar and serenading us with a bit of Wonderwall. After the performance, the night kind of deteriorated into a mess of red wine and drinking games (I never need to play Ring of Fire again, thanks).

(A very happy Abby and a very intoxicated Sebastian. Tabarnac!)

(An example of what you find on your camera when you accidentally leave it in Jayson's safe keeping)

The next morning we woke up to discover that Mick had returned with Amber at 2AM. Abby and I packed up the Hoff and we all piled into the truck. It was a long day of driving to our next campsite (the infamous chicken-dog-campsite!)

Stay tuned for stories about winery tours, annoying winery tour participants (ahem, Jayson), ginormous steaks and a sandstorm!