Tucuman to Salta

We flew to Tucuman, where we met our guide for this area. He happened to be a well-known photographer (his calendars and books were in every hotel and store we went to in the area) and his mother is a well-known historian, so he was a wealth of knowledge about the area.

As we left the city the landscape slowly changed from a lush subtropical forest covered with bromeliads and ferns to rolling hills.

Our first evening was spent in the little town of Tafi del Valle in a quaint little boutique hotel. Teresa marvelled at the little details such as the copper basins in the sinks and the antique furniture. We found out that the lady that runs the place did the interior decoration and was also the chef. In fact she was a gourmet chef and was head of a gourmet association in the area. The 4 in our group shared a sampling of appetizers that she selected and went on to delicious main courses and deserts - we couldn't resist (the great wine helped to lower our resistance too). Teresa said she had the best steak she'd ever had.

The next morning we went to visit a ranch where they had a cheese factory and spent a little time in the town, which does get tourists. I thought the stores had some interesting things for sale, but they weren't what Teresa was looking for. One of the great pre-inca cultures flourished here. They were known as Tafi. One of their most distinctive features was the construction of menhirs or megaliths (standing large stones).

From Tafi, we followed a dusty gravel road, which winds up to EL INFIERNILLO (little hell) at 3000 m (9,000 ft) above sea level to get into the Calchaqui Valleys. The weather and the landscape changed dramatically once again from rollling grass-covered mountain to desert highlands.

We arrived at the site of Quilmes, which is also the name of the Indians that lived in the area. I'd seen pictures of the site before, but none of them did the site justice. Between 4000-5000 people lived in this city. The buildings started in the flat area and went all the way up the mountain, making it well-defensed. These Indians caused quite a bit of problems for the Incas and the Spaniards. The Spaniards finally had to divert their water supply to defeat them and then shipped them off to southern Argentina, where they sort of withered away, since the land and climate were completely different.

Yes, the Incas did reach this far. Our guide's mother wrote an interesting little book that told all about the history of the region and all the little episodes of power struggles.

We spent the night there at a hotel designed by a famous local artist. Good food and wine again. By the way - empanadas, tamales and humitas are some of the main local foods.

The next day we went to visit a winery on the way to Cafayate, which is probably the 2nd most important wine area after Mendoza. They produce their own type of grape there and we sure enjoyed the wines that we had from there.

As we headed to Salta, we passed through some very colorful areas. One of the places our guide called the Witches Castle. The area sort of reminded me of Arizona/Utah, though the erosion was a little different. But as our guide pointed out, the unique thing about this area was that you could see so many different types of ecosystems within 1 day of Salta - from jungle to desert.

One of the things we noticed when we arrived in Salta was how well-preserved most of the old colonial buildings were. We were told that the government heavily subsidized the costs of owners who wanted to fix up the buildings.