Days 59-60: Salta & Cafayate, Argentina

Sunday morning, Dan and I checked out of our hotel and walked through the town of Salta with our overnight belongings. We had a couple of hours to kill before our bus to Cafayate, so we went to a small museum in the city center. The museum focused on the Inca empire, which had previously extended to the Salta region. More specifically, the exhibit highlighted a religious ritual that culminated in the live burial of two "chosen" children. Amazingly, a few of these children had been discovered in frozen ground, and as a result, were nearly perfectly preserved. One of the children was on display in the museum, which was a disturbing yet fascinating sight to behold.

After leaving the exhibit, we headed to the bus station and took a four-hour bus ride to the "neighboring" town of Cafayate. On the way we drove through some beautiful landscape, much of which reminded me of the red rock mountains of Arizona. When we pulled into town in the early evening, the owner of our hostel, José, was there to greet us--talk about customer service! He talked with us about Cafayate as he led us the few blocks to the hostel. We then dropped our belongings and went to explore the town. 

We discovered that Cafayate was tiny and we were able to walk around the whole town in about 10 minutes. During our walk, we saw flyers advertising "La Semana de Torrentes" (the week of Torrentes), a celebration of the white wine that is commonly produced in this region. The final event was that night. So Dan and I decided to check it out. We walked to the venue, and there, were greeted with 12 or so booths where local vineyards offered free tastings of their wines. Dan and I took a couple of laps around to the booths, purely for evaluative purposes, of course. Once sated, we left the event and walked through town to get some dinner to-go (we had a Giants vs. Eagles game we needed to be back for). Empanadas being the famed food of the region, we chose to stop at La Casa de Empanadas, where we ordered a dozen empanadas with various fillings for a pricey two dollar total. While there, we also got a chance to leave our mark on Cafayate.

Back at the hostel, we ate our tasty empanadas while watching some NFL. José, the owner, also stopped by the common room to chat us up as we ate. He engaged us in a lengthy conversation about Argentina's two-tiered society and the tacit suppression of the indigenous majority. Since arriving in the north, we had noticed a much larger indigenous population than in other regions, and often in the poorer areas. It was interesting, though depressing, to hear José confirm our observations.

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The next day, Dan and I rented bikes from the hostel with the plan to ride to the nearby desert and a few of Cafayate's vineyards. We had a nice, smooth ride to the desert and got some great views of the area.

As we departed, I made it about five feet before I rode over something sharp and my back tire went flat. José had prepared us for this possibility and gave us the necessary equipment to shore up the hole and pump the tire full. I would have been useless in this endeavor, but Dan made an impressive attempt at repairing the bike. Unfortunately, after two valiant attempts, the tire remained flat. We were forced to walk our bikes back into town, all the while keeping one thumb out in hopes that a friendly driver would take pity on us. Only one car stopped, where a friendly pair of brothers used an electronic pump to fill my back tire. Of course, this didn't solve our problem, but it gave us a short reprieve from walking. 

Two exhausting, sun-punishing hours later, we finally made it back to our hostel. We returned the bikes and got a partial refund, and then headed into town for a quick bite. We then set off on-foot for a nearby vineyard. While there, we had a change of luck and received a personal tour of the expansive property. 

After sampling the wines and buying a ridiculously cheap bottle, we walked back to our hostel. It was already getting late, and after we had returned and taken much-needed showers, it was time for us to take the bus back to Salta. There, we spent one last night at our ho(s)tel before leaving the city early the following morning.