#48 A Triathlon around Cafayate

Just when we thought there was no more excitement to be had on the road to Cafayate what did we come across but a washed out road. Actually quite a few washed out roads. As Reece likes to tell people, when reading blogs of bikers falling over water, or being trapped trying to cross a river, we always wondered why anyone would voluntarily take on such a challenge. Well, now we understand that choice has nothing to do with it.

The first crossing came not far out of Cafayate after stopping to check out the ruins of the pre-hispanic urban settlement from which Argentina's most famous beer has taken its name - Quilmes. Not to be confused with the place of the same name just outside Buenos Aires, to where the indigenous people of this area were deported after the conquistadores usual methods failed. We had had a lovely little meander around the ruins, tried a ham and cheese tortilla (delicious), met some other bikers from Ushuaia, and had had our first touch of live llama wool. So soft. There had been water on the road to Tafi del Valle described by Reece in the last blog a couple of small streams around Quilmes but nothing that had required us to disembark the bike. This one changed all that. We now know what to expect when seeing a line of cars parked on the road: a couple of workers, maybe a digger, and a whole lot of rocky river preventing passage across the road.

Always keen and mostly willing to try local produce it was a pleasant discovery to find (when we finally arrived) Cafayate famous for its cabra (goat cheese) and torrontes - a varietal of dry white wine produced in the region. In addition to visiting a cheese factory and vineyard or two our afternoons were spent lounging beneath the grape vines in the courtyard of our hostel, picking the odd grape for a snack, and just generally chilling out with our new buddy from Boston, Hudson. Nothing like a bit of glamour before hitting what we hear will be a bleaker economic climate in Bolivia.

That said, the heart rate increased a couple of beats while casually strolling alongside a country highway on our way to a vineyard less than a kilometre from town. We had been recounting nostalgically our favourite aspects of the trip thus far, while chatting about the excited trepidation we felt to be heading to Bolivia soon for the sense of the unknown and new challenges it would bring. The sky looked just like the Argentinan flag: long stretches of blue separated by the odd stark white puffy cloud. In short, it was a very relaxed setting, making what happened next even more unexpected.

I looked down at the dirt path locked between the asphalt on one side and green on the other and wondered what was causing the yellowy-white piece of rubber less than a metre ahead of me to move. A silly thought perhaps, but it really did take me a second or two to appreciate I was looking at a snake about half a metre in length and 3cm in diameter. The whole event was over in a few seconds as the snake cowered in fear from us returning rapidly to the safety of the adjacent grasslands. This was followed by me clutching Reece in terror and laughing giddily, possibly slightly hyperventilating, from the adrenaline rush the event had caused.

Another heart-beating experience was the bicycle ride we went on to check out the Quebrada de Cafayate. Nothing like taking on a fifty kilometre challenge when it has been nearly two months since undertaking any serious exercise (Torres del Paine). It was worth the wheezing. In addition to the visual of riding alongside rocky mountain ranges dipped in various shades of red hues there are a number of points along the way where the passage of time has caused the rocks to take on a resemblance to other nature or man-made objects. For example there is the ampitheatre, in which the acoustics make for great listening to the regular busker who plays his pan-pipes for the crowds, the castles, and the toad, though I suspect nature had a little help with that one, amongst others.

That evening Hudson put us on to a fiesta going on down the road from our hostal in Cafayate, where we found a parade of different groups dressed up in costumes, some dancing, others playing music, and all trying to avoid the spray snow so popular with carnaval crowds.

We couldn't sit around drinking wine and eating grapes forever, so the plan was to head to Cachi via our old favourite, Ruta 40. It turns out there was plenty of challenge ahead before stepping foot in Bolivia.