Highest wine growing region in the world…Cafayate, Argentina

This is a ‘semi’ post as I don’t want to forget what was an amazing few days in Cafayate (and some rather interesting architectural interpretations of ‘localisation’…I dedicate the photo below to the entire current and ex Borders team as an example of perhaps taking it a little too far??):

and will write in depth about the whole Salta region later in the week, and Alex, despite best intentions, we just completely ran out of time so didn’t make it to Paraguay, excellent excuse for another SA trip in a few years!! And so to a quick aside… we are now in our ‘pad’ in Buenos Aires, the Asian loft in Palermo Viejo, and yes it is as amazing as it looks on tripadvisor, and some, and with some Marissa planning it’s only $40 a night due to booking back in Feb… able to live as locally as we can for the next month, can’t wait, and as we just visited local supermarket and for $80 managed to get 4 excellent bottles of wine, 2l of beer, 2 huge steaks, a chicken, eggs, veggies, olive oil, balsamic, and much more, including a successful chat to the veggie guy resulting in the freshest bunch of basil from out the back, I reckon we’ll do quite well with the budget here…! Next stop more Spanish lessons as with basic questions it seems to be happening for me, can’t wait to see how medium chat goes…

So to Cafayate, a few hours through spectacular landscapes, on a tour with Sabrina and Gaston from Buenos Aires (who have kindly agreed to introduce us to mate tea and salsa whilst we’re all actually in BA,  and who taught me a new word ‘materos’ which, if I’ve spelt it correctly, means ‘mad for mate’ the local tea…will dedicate a special post to mate, mate implements and salsa post experience, and yes I know tango is “in” here, but somehow I think I’ll prefer salsa!).. a few taster photos below including one Loc kindly took when I was feeling a bit dodge and using the ‘ute’ for prop up (please note the wearing of ‘scotisvest’ with 38 pockets including a bungy jump attachment for intrepid wombats, they think of everything, but that will be another post), and finally one for my lovely mum, in the midst of deciding between Trump and Swatzernegger (or ok the equivalent in our little village election in Trevignano) I have finally conquered my fear of llamas developed at an early age whilst feeding one with rather large and yellow teeth at Ocean Park in HK, these were a bit cuter…

then to a couple of nights in an amazing hostel, Rusty, recommended by the lovely Jennifer during our winery tour at Nanni (who was rather good the next evening at late night empanada supply)…

and finally to top off the blog, to one of the many moments we’ve stumbled across, that could only have happened with my faltering Spanish, and equals in some ways the moment we were upgraded randomly, due to being late for a flight as a result of my apparently incorrect assumption that Morocco was in Africa (Heathrow think differently)…anyway long story, ending in first class trip and Loc sitting next to Val Kilmer on the way to Morocco, could only happen for some reason whilst back/flash packing (!!!)

Back to Cafayate and NW Argentina, it started with me asking if we could taste some wines at the end of what was a rather poetic tour of the new wine museum, the initial answer was no but you can buy a bottle and drink it, not bad I thought, then I noticed a poster with something about a festival of high altitude grapes, so asked about it and this prompted a ‘oh yes, there is a tasting here about 4.30pm, you should come back then’, even better…it felt very ‘Trevignano’ in terms of you need to vaguely know someone to know what’s going on…

So back at 4.30pm to the gorgeous long fully set table for about twenty and a free tasting that lasted until dusk…surrounded by cameras and photographers, 4 wineries, talks from all the wine makers and owners, and to top it off when back at the hostel that evening with Jennifer, Patricia and Danny ‘birthday’ boy…(!) we were on the news, hilarious (and a result of the museum only having opened a few weeks ago…did I tell you they had one of those princess leia like 3D video things telling you about the Torrontes grape..and yes it was as seventies as it sounds and ACE)!!!!

I will finish with officially renouncing the idea of a blog a week, at least for the next few days, there is still so much that I’d like to write about, I can’t wait that long!!!!!!