 The teleferico is in the background. |
 The view from the teleferico office. |
Cafayate
It took me a long time to get to Cafayate but once I went I could see why so many people talk about it. The trip from Salta is worth the drive even if there was nothing interesting to see in Cafayate. But actually the city of Cafayate is probably also worth visiting even if you just dropped in by helicopter and didn't see the scenery along the way. If you combine the trip and the city, it makes for a very nice visit.
A lot of tour operators go from Salta to Cafayate just for the day, but I would recommend staying in Cafayate at least a night. There were a suprising number of nice looking, low priced, small hostals.
I stayed in El Balcon. It is a true backpacker's hostel, with the lowest prices in Cafayate, at 12 pesos per person, including breakfast and Internet. Here is more info on the hostels in Cafayate.
Here are some of my pics of the trip to Cafayate from Salta. And here are a few pics of Cafayate
To get to Cafayate you can take a "collectivo" (a bus) from the main bus terminal or you can take a "remis" (private car) for almost exactly the same price (around 25 pesos as of November 2006). The car takes about 2 and a half hours and the bus takes about three and a half.
Here are pics of the cars waiting to go to Cafayate. They are parked right accross from the teleferico. These are the kinds of thing which aren't normally known to tourists and are not even marked. There aren't any signs at all saying these drivers go to Cafayate. I lived in Salta 6 months and nver even knew! Here is the name and phone number of the guy who took me. His car is the one behind the red one. He played decent music instead of the annoying "cumbia" music some drivers play. And he didn't blast it as they usually did in Peru. And, the best part is he had air conditioning (which actually worked!). Pablo Alanis 0368 -156 39505, 0368 - 422 179.
The teleferico is in the background. |
The view from the teleferico office. |
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Below are two of the other hostals, but there are many more.
These two aren't backpackers' hostels by the way. For info on the hostels, see below
The backpackers hostels are El Balcon, Ruta 40 and Huayra Sanipy. By the way, there is a deceptive sign outside one pseudo hostel. It looks like the Hosteling International sign but it is not a licensed HI hostel. It was located on North Guemes street (Guemes Norte). The actual HI hostel is Ruta 40 and is on the same street, but in the other direction from the plaza and thus is South Guemes (Guemes Sur). The Ruta 40 hostel looked like a nice place and I met the managers, a group of young guys from Buenos Aires.
If you are standing in the doorway of the little tourist information office on the main plaza, Ruta 40 is to your right, about a half block past the plaza. The other one is about 4 blocks to your left and in my opinion is not worth even walking down to unless the other hostels are full. When I went there no one was even there to tell me what the prices were. Instead I was told to walk back up the street and look for the manager in a restaurant or something.
The Huayra Sanipy hostal also looks like a nice place. It has a fire circle in the back yard and has room to pitch a tent. It has a reputation as a bit of a "hippy" place and also as a place you go for one day and end up staying for a few weeks.
My Nov 13, 2006 trip
It is 3:30pm the road is winding. We keep going over dry river gullies. It is spring here now, or early summer. Everything is green. At least on this part of the road Later it will become dry and rocky. I've been thinking of getting a motorcycle. This road would be a good one to ride on. We just stopped for gas (natural gas) in El Caril. It is still about 150 km to Cafayate. I feel excited about the idea of buying a hostel. That is the reason for my trip. To go have a look at it and talk to the owners.
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Here is something I copied from another site:
At 81 km is Alemania. Then the road gets very pretty as it follows the river through the mountain curves.
The first half of the journey was pretty ordinary but as we got nearer to Cafayate we entered the most amazing landscape. There were fantastic wind eroded rock formations in numerous different colours and around each bend in the journey we were treated to another astounding vista. The shapes and formations that had been eroded were like something out of a computer generated science fiction movie. We were both desperate to get out to take photos but being on a public bus this was not an option unless we wanted to get off in the middle of nowhere with no sure way of continuing. Every now and then the bus stopped to drop off and pick up people in the most desolate and isolated areas where there was no sign of human life. We wondered where the people we dropped off or picked up went to or came from.
From http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/blog-28349.html