Tucuman Žn Cafayate
Hello there,
Last time we updated the blog was from La Rioja on Sunday. All we did that day was waiting for a bus and then we rode to Tucuman. We got there at 10pm under the rain... Walked for 25 min looking for a hostel mentionned by the Lonely Planet. Never found it. So we ended up in a crap hostel full of mosquitoes.
04/12/06. We had set the alarm for 8:00am. As soon as I switched it off, all I could here was something scraping against a door.... the bathroom door. What could it be? A giant cockroach!!! That was a good start. David grabbed his shoe, crushed it, opened the bathroom door and discovered a whole family plus mosquitoes of course. The good thing is that we had had our shower the night before.
Anyhoo, we ran away from that sordid place and went back to the bus station where we left our bags and bought tickets for our next destination: Cafayate. We could have got on a bus on the same day but that meant arriving to Cafayate at 10pm again and we just didn´t have the courage to run into a poor quality hostel again but preferred to choose one in broad daylight. The option we had was leaving at 6:00am on Tuesday.
Because we had one full day ahead of us in San Miguel de Tucuman and because the weather was still grey and miserable, we decided to take our time and find a nice place to stay for the night. The tourist office found us an International Youth Hostel and we were delighted not to find any creepy crawlies when checking out the dorms. They even had a one-month old puppy so how could I resist? Spent the rest of the day visiting the town.
05/12/06. The alarm was set for 5.15am but sure I never heard the damn clock. You know the way you never really sleep well at night when knowing you have to get up early the next day, well that is my case and I luckily happened to check the time at 5.30am. I hate rushing starts. Well we managed to catch our bus and at 6:00am we were already snoozing off. It was a pitty to be sleeping though as we went through some kind of rainforest and it was just gorgeous. But I only glimpsed it for a second and next thing I was 
already dozing off. The journey was quite long and we finally reached Cafayate at 12:30pm.
Some locals were at the bus stop inviting us to go to their hostel. They had even organised a van to drive all the tourists to their place. I was a bit wary at first but the hostel proved to be a nice place and indeed very cheap (3 euros in dorms). They even offer excursions to Quebrada Cafayate at a low cost. But from the pics, we could recognise the same kind of canyons we went to in Talampaya. The difference being that it cost us a bloody fortune at the time. Argh if we could know the future sometimes...
Anyway we opted for the economic option of not registering to any excursion and to go by ourselves visiting the village and then walking to some falls. Got scammed by a local woman asking us to pay a fee to climb a mountain. I knew she wasn´t up to any good but we had a nice chat and she really seemed poor. We all need a living.
So why did we choose to come to Cafayate? Because the guide gave the description of some local ruins. Of course, again, buses are not the best option. The best one is to leave at 6:00am and come back at 12:30pm knowing that the bus only lets you off on the roadside and then you have to walk 5km to reach the ruins. Cool!
Today: 06/12/06. Guess what? The alarm was set at 5:15am again. We just love getting up at this hour. The early bird gets the worm. After sleeping a few hours, I woke up at 4:00am thanks to mosquitoes 
biting me everywhere. Never start scratching the itch or you will be at it for hours. So I resisted but couldn´t get back to sleep as the alarm clock would be off an hour later. Got David up at 5:00am and then counted the bites: 10 on my left arm, 5 on my right arm and 3 on each foot. Hopefully they weren´t carrying any disease.
After an hour on the bus, we were left on the roadside at 7:00am. Surprisingly enough, the energy was there. The full moon had disappeared, the sun was rising and the clouds were clearing away slowly. Early morns are a very special time indeed when nature is still asleep. We walked the 5km in less than an hour, listening to every bird and watching small animals running everywhere. This particular moment when nature is awakening really makes you feel that life is worth 
living and you are just delighted to exist and be a witness. We then had all the leisure to wander through the ruins of Quilmes. The indigenous group living there was called the Quilmes. They resisted the Spanish conquerors for 130 years and then preferred to be extinguished rather than submitting themselves according to the guide. The ruins are very organised in squares and circles as if somebody had just built them up. They are at the foot of a big mountain covered with huge cactus giving the site a special charm.
People had told us we would be able to hitch back the 5km but there was simply no one. So we just walked back under the scorching sun and waited for the bus.
At 6:30pm we will be leaving Cafayate for what should be our last destination in Argentina: Salta.
Meet you there...