NW Nomad

Grape Harvest Cafayate

It's early this year thanks to the unusual heat and lack of rain. They are already out in the Cafayate vineyards picking the Torrontes grapes.

 
At the Domingo Hermanos Bodega visitors are now getting a tour of production. Today they were unloading trucks full of grapes into a sorter. The Bodega is one of the nicest located in the centre of town so no transport is needed to get out into the hills.

The bunches were put through the wringer and somehow magically divested of their stalks which were then spat back out while the fat little fruit spun on down into the vat.

 
 
 It will be a couple more weeks before the red merlot, malbec and cabernet grapes are perfectly ready and then the big harvest party at Finca Las Nubes. For real wine enthusiasts, we run a tour moving from Cafayate through the Quebrada de las Flechas (Gorge of Arrows) towards Cachi. Stopping at Molinos we head to Colome and Tacuil to sample some of the finest wines at the world's highest altitudes.

Cafayate to Salta through the Quebrada in Rainy Season

A huge rainfall through the night on Tuesday/Wednesday and I had to take clients through the Quebrada at 6am. 'You'll never make it', everyone said. Government offices called so we had to go. Mudslides were everywhere. Part of the road had slid over the cliff, taking the guardrail along but the truck made it over the mud and the tractors were already on their way through schlumping out the mess. 

Arriving in Salta, the car had to go instantly to the lavadero - it was covered in iron-rich red mud. On the way back, the Quebrada was incredibly vibrant, like a woman newly in love, its colours were glowing. Even though she lives in Cafayate, the client was in awe. The quebrada changes with every turn of light or weather - you never get tired of looking at it.

Don Gutierrez, the owner of the lovely Posta de Las Cabras, the halfway point between Salta and Cafayate - try the grilled home made goat cheese and the yummy cakes - said that all the tour buses they usually stop there at 5.30pm, had not been able to get back through the quebrada until 10pm the night before. 

Plastic Rage - Recycle or Abort

New Year - New Newspaper.

The first issue of North West Nomad News is now out. It covers the five states of NOA down to Mendoza with all the questions and answers a traveller has.

One of the pet peeves of the editor is the excessive use of plastic in South America, especially bags and bottles. Patagonia has banned plastic bags in gorcery stores because of the rubbish pile ruining the landscape. Now that full on summer has arrived in NOA with temperatures ranging from 30 - 50 degrees (Yes that does say 50 degrees centigrade!) water must be consumed constantly but bottles do not need to be discarded.

This is a Christmas Tree just off the plaza in Salta constructed from plastic bottles and plastic bottle tops. Sponsored by COKE.

I haven't been able to find out what will happen to the bottles tonigh, Twelth Night (Noche de Reyes) when the Xmas hoo-hah is demantled.

Please get a steel bottle and re-use.

Tour Salta to Cafayate and Cachi

People often ask which is the best way to make this circuit of the Valles Calchaquies from Salta to Cafayate and Cachi - clockwise or anti-clockwise?

After pondering this every time I go out there, clockwise seems best for a number of reasons. Although the Quebrada de las Conchas from Salta to Cafayate looks different from every angle at every hour of the day, I think heading south may have the slight advantage.

Arriving in Cafayate in the afternoon means there's time to try out some tastings at the bodegas before supper.

Driving to Cachi is long and juddering and sometimes dangerous/boring. The best part is the Quebrada de las Flechas between San Carlos and Angastaco, closer to Cafayate. Then you can stop in Molinos for a lovely lunch and snooze to Cachi. Coming South from Cachi, there is nowhere decent for lunch if the Finca is closed as it was yesterday. It's a plate of chips in Angastaco and arrive at Arrow Gorge hot, tired and hungry.

Quebrada de las Flechas

I took a photographer client out through the Quebrada de las Flechas and he couldn't stop shooting the sky. The clouds hang like luminescent balloons, sun and rain dancing around making light play like a John Ford movie.

Taking their turn, the rock formations change constantly with every appearance of the sun peeking between clouds.

Iruya

The word seems to be out about Iruya these days. Many more visitors to Salta are taking the extra days to travel to this village coddled deep into the mountains just below the Bolivian border. Fewer realise that it is not an easy trek that can be completed in one day and that although there is a bus from Humahuaca that makes the five hour ride once a day, it is best to travel by car.

The road is ripio (gravel) all the way and after the village of Iturbe, there are no facilites for three to four hours until the sky blue roof of the Iglesia at Iruya peeks into view. The deserted small church on the hill twenty minutes outside Iturbe appears to have been built for the goats.

The road is steep and winding until the summit on the border between Salta and Jujuy provinces at 4000 metres above sea level. Once this cloud-swamped peak has been crossed, there are glorious views of the road hairpinning down the valley towards Iruya.

Salinas Grandes

The salt flats, like much of the landscape of Salta and Jujuy, never tires me- I can travel there with visitors repeatedly and am always amazed.

When we leave from Cafayate we take mystical Ruta 40 up through Molinos and Cachi then continue on the rough ripio road to spiritual La Poma with its Inca ruins and San Antonio de las Cobres at 3775metres above sea level (the stop for the Tren a las Nubes).

Leaving from Salta is faster and less intriguing until we reach Purmamarca with its famous Hill of Siete Colores (best viewed without the mountain of tour buses in front) and then take the beautiful winding road through the cerros to Salinas.

You need to wear lots, pero lots of sunblock and spare a thought for the people who eke out a living cutting the salt blocks and hauling them out to dry before shipping them out. They remind me of the tiny men in Star Wars - all covered up in hoods with only two tiny lights for eyes. This is a harsh environment but stunning.

We can continue on to the pueblo of Susques where some visitors elect to be dropped in order to catch the bus through Paso de Jama to Chile or return to Tilcara for a longer journey or to Salta.

Eco-Patagonia

I am concerned that Salta does not become the New El Calafate and lose its soul to tourism. The glaciares are astoundingly beautiful but the town and the infra-structure is ruined because of the rush to cater to the masses of people anxious to snap a photo in front of a famous sight.

Visiting a special place in the world is so much more than snapping a photo. An excursion is so much more than stopping the bus at the same point every day and lining up visitors to snap at the same vista - usually when the light is all wrong anyway.

In El Calafate it is impossible to travel anywhere without using the middle-man excursion agency and in some instances Salta and Jujuy are becoming this way in that the tour agencies offer the same standard bus trips with too many people, all stopping at the same 'famous' sights.

In this case it is our intention to simply go further away with a small group, searching our adventure and solitude without damaging our environment

Cafayate - Rio Colorado

Rio Colorado is a gorgeous half-day excursion very close to the city that we take clients on as part of a package. Hike or drive to the start of the track through endless stretches of vineyards.

When travelling South and stopping in Cafayate for a few days - the Colorado is a short option although it can be a strenuous trek and it is best to take a guide who knows the route as they are not marked.

We use the guides as they are local and it is their livelihood - They always have tales to tell. Our clients were quite adventurous so we went up the route with more scrabling and a small section of caving where bats can be seen at night.

The guide Franco showed us his scar from his run-in with a puma in the hills. That's him leaping across the rocks beneath the waterfall like a mountain goat.

The Colorado is like a hidden valley, very lush and secret surrounded by hills.

Cafayate - Quebrada de Las Conchas

Quebrada Las Conchas has again usurped lo de Humahuaca as my favourite after spending the last week hiking and photographing it in all its rainy season glory. The light changes constantly as the rain clouds do battle with the sun.

And the clouds draping themselves around the mountains here at 1662 metres above sea level are like a reluctant bride.

We can guide the Quebrada for a day trip either from Salta or from Cafayate, although I prefer the latter for the loveliness of the pueblo and its proximity to the gorge - leaves more time for trekking and picnicking. From Cafayate we went along ruta 68 to Medanos - Salta's mini Sahara - reaching it meant fording muddy water to thigh level after the rains.

Then continued directly into the Quebrada. The amazing rock formations were formed in the collision of two land masses hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The varying colours are created from the mineral deposits of copper and iron. Unlike the day excursions from Salta that simply stop off for five minutes at photo-ops along the road, we took our travellers hiking deep into the quebrada to experience the silence and colours without buses idling in the background. Our guests got engaged in the gorge - Its pretty romantic in there plus it was Valentines Day, or Dia de los Enamoradas.

Rainy season is full throttle in NOA at the moment and the rain has caused flooding to the road and tracks. Even the rio at Los Castillos was running high.