Month: October 2023

This morning before leaving Molinos we went for a walk across the river and the dry river bed near our hotel.

We loaded all our luggage in our new trash bags to protect the luggage from the dust.

The road was again very rough today. Even though the drive was only 74 miles it took us between three and four hours. The terrain was varied and some of it was really stunning. We made several stops.

Tonight we are at Grace Cafayate resort in a villa overlooking the vineyards. It’s a lovely spot. We had lunch soon after we arrived.

The last few nights have all been in different places so it was very nice to be spending two nights in Molinos. Before we headed out exploring this morning we did chores.

Then we headed out of town to check out wineries. The terrain we drove through would never make you think there were wineries on this road.

When we first arrived at Tacuil there was no one around. We were greeted by a very friendly dog that was carrying an animal paw in his mouth. After Duke rang the big bell a couple of times someone showed up and we tasted a few wines.

Then we headed to Colomé winery where we had a reservation for visiting the art museum and tasting their wine. Our guide was named Sabrina. She was absolutely fantastic. Her English was excellent and she knew a lot about the Colomé winery and their wines. Colomé was established in 1831! We tasted three wines.

After the tasting we took at tour of the James Turrel Art Museum. I knew the art was all about space and light but I had no idea what we were going to see. Some of the pieces we saw were large rooms with surprising and amazing effects. We couldn’t take pictures and it is very difficult to describe the museum but I think we all were blown away by the experience.

We only travelled 34 miles today but it took us two and a half hours. At Miraluna we had breakfast outside.

Then we did a tour and tasting at the Miraluna winery. The winery is in a very dry environment and at an altitude of 8,300 ft. This makes the grapes smaller with thicker skins.

The road to Molinos o I was dirt and very rough. It was also a very windy and dusty day. About half way to Molinos we arrived right after a tree had fallen across the road. It took a while but eventually the farmer got his tractor and was able to move the tree.

When we finally got to Molinos we had a picnic lunch in the courtyard of our hotel.

Before dinner we went for a short walk.

Today we went south and west into the Argentine Andes Mountains. Before we left the hotel in Salto we put all of our luggage into garbage bags to protect them from the dust.

The scenery continued to change as we climbed higher into the mountains.

We also saw a lot of llama-like animals but I’m not sure if they were llama, alpaca, vicuña or guanacos.

We continued to climb and eventually went over a pass at more than 11,000 feet.

When we finally got to Cachi we had a late lunch followed by ice cream.

We are staying at a winery about eight miles outside of Cachi.

We had a picnic dinner and tasted two local wines to decide which we liked best.

After dinner we had fun playing Rummikub.

This morning our plane to Salto was supposed to leave at 7:45 so we got up at 5 and a taxi picked us up at 5:30. The plane was about an hour late leaving and the flight was just under two hours so we got to Salto about 11. Renting the car took about an hour but eventually we were on the road.

The hotel where we are staying Legado Mitico is very nice.

As you may know Argentina has terrible inflation. It’s about 120% annually. Duke asked the very helpful man who checked us in about the best way to change money. If we used an ATM we would get the official exchange rate which is something like 347 pesos to the dollar. If you change your money on the street you get the black market rate which is 830 pesos to the dollar!

The front desk guy who spoke perfect English said “I know it’s weird but changing your money on the street is perfectly safe!” So that’s what we did. We changed $400 and came away with 3 ‘bricks of $1000 peso bills and a few loose bills.

By this time we were all very hungry. We hadn’t had anything to eat all day except the cookie on the airplane. So we found a restaurant on the main square. The tourist map we got at the airport said that the number one must do in Salta is to taste empanadas with a glass of Torrontés wine. We had beer instead of wine but we did order a sampler platter. It was all delicious especially the empanadas.

Since we had been up since 5am the next task was naps. Finally we sat in the lounge and played cards.

Later we went to the grocery store to get picnic supplies.