Camilla EuDaly Barrett

So, Wednesday August 5th, Paul and I took a tour from Salta to Cafayate (pronounced Cah-fah-sha-tay). Cafayate is famous for WINE... As a part of the tour, we drove through a canyon, that is labeled as a "National Preserve"... I'm not sure if they just don't have "National Parks", or if they just call it something different. It was SOOO beautiful! When we first entered the Preserve area, we stopped at a "Swiss" Farm that was apparently owned by two swiss sisters- it was a dairy farm that made cheeses and milk from both cows and goats. They had a cute little lodge-style restaurant, with coffee and such. The lodge had a fire going- it was pretty chilly all day, so that was nice.

Below: Paul when we got out of our tour Truck (it was a small Ford Ranger or something, with one other couple that was from Buenos Aires, and then a tour guide... which I will explain about HIM later! lol)

Above: I played around with some fun lens filters I brought along with me...

Below: Some of the BEAUTIFUL views we stopped and got out to take pictures of!

Above: This River sped near a small town that was dubbed 'Little Germany" It does appear that way doesn't it?!

Below: Alot of the River Beds were somewhat dry. I think they have monsoon-type seasons here. It was very VERY dry, and I still have red dust on my boots that I wore!

We stopped at an overlook here:

And then I turned around and took this picture:

We were surrounded my Mountains! It was dramatic!

At a location, just previous to this, a man had a Llama you could pet and take pictures with. We didn't, but I did take a picture of him and his Llama. This may be one my my favorite pictures I got!

You may have to click it to see it full size in the post on blogspot/xanga. Anyway, quite a weathered old man!

Before getting to the valley where Cafayate was located, the rocks/mountains changed a bit, and began to look more like Utah and California:

I used my Fisheye lens on the above picture- it was a fairly inexpensive lens and I'm really not very happy with it, but maybe I'll get a really good one later. It still does its job, I s'pose. Allowing you to see a more more wide-angle view of the 'scape!

Below: There were these very odd trees that we saw all over the place- with GREEN BARK! Apparently they do most of their photosynthesis through their bark, rather than leaves, which explains why there is a higher quantity of chlorofil in the bark, making it green.

Below: I've always liked seeing pictures of hot guys on cliffs. Something about danger and might, all in one shot. Yeah. Now I've got my very own:

We arrived at the Winery about 3 and 1/2 hours later (after stopping at the lodge, and 20 other places along the way to take pictures!)

The name of this winery, was Bodega Nanni (Bodega meaning "vineyard" or "winery"...)
Also, the word for wine, is "Vino" (Vee-noh)... (thinking about where WINE comes from, "Vine" makes sense!).

Now, this is the cool part- THIS WINERY WAS ORGANIC! We didn't even know that when we randomly picked the tour from a flyer in our hotel room (Yeah, I know! Can you believe they actually get business that way? Silly tourists!) So, the wine is fermented by a complex process involving egg-whites, instead of chemicals. At the end of our tour we got to taste the wine.

The girl above did our tour in both English and Spanish. That was nice. There were some German tourists at the winery as well, and they of course, knew English, so I felt better not being the only one needing English.

We tried four different types of wine- a Merlot, Cabernet-Savignon, a White Wine, and then a Dessert Wine.

I REALLY appreciated the tour, because I remember being 14 or so, and our family taking a tour of Stoneridge Winery in MO... We got to see the process of how it is made, where it is stored, in what types of barrels, how it is put into the bottles, etc. However, when it was time to taste the wine, we weren't allowed! I was bummed, of course, knowing why. SO, I was very happy to an opportunity to tour a winery (not only that but CERTIFIED ORGANIC!) as an adult and really be able to appreciate the differences. Of course, growing up, we had wine at the dinner table with my parents, which was part of their plan to raise us with a responsible understanding of drinking, beginning at age 13-14 (don't worry it wasn't much, not enough to affect our brain development, lol!) but, of course it worked- no rebellious teenagers trying to get their hands on "life" that was prohibited in our home...

ANYWAY, so I have always had wine, and I can tell you if I like it or I don't, but never why or what really the differences are, or what it tastes good with. NOW I DO! I'm pretty excited about this experience, and as a result, wouldn't mind having a wine and cheese party sometime. A wine tasting or something. That would be fun now. So, it was a good experience.

Below is a picture of all the different types of wine they made. There is a specific cross-breed of grape that is only produced in Argentina, and I believe that the Merlot they make is the wine that is of that specific kind of grape. They also have other types of grapes, but the one Argentina is getting well-known for in the wine industry is this specific cross.

Paul and I bought a case, and brought it home with us. (6 bottles) but before we left Salta, we purchased two more, to bring back. Apparently you can only buy it in Salta, Cafayate, and Miami. It is not exported to Buenos Aires, which was kind of surprising to me. I think it is exported to Europe though.

We managed to get two and three bottles in each of our checked luggage without having to really declare anything in customs. Yes, it was heavy luggage. Of the wine we purchased, most was gifts, and three bottles were for us.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Now you're all going to be wanting to come over for "dinner"... ha!

It's GOOOOOOOD wine. I would expect it to be around $30 or so, US. Guess what we paid? $3-$4 a bottle! Hee hee! Like I mentioned in a previous post, you might as well buy wine instead of pop, because it's about the same price. In some cases, getting a glass of wine at dinner was cheaper than getting mineral water. *sigh*

After touring the winery, our tour guide left us in town, and gave us some pointers on restaurants, etc. We planned to meet up with him an hour later.
We had a nice lunch with the other couple from Buenos Aires, and then split while they went shopping, and Paul and I stopped to get WINE ice cream! YEAH! WINE ice cream!

It was REAL wine too- of course, not 'wine-flavored' or anything like that! When you think about the near impossibilities of making an ice-cream with alcohol (dairy and alcohol don't really mix) it was amazing. It was still amazingly creamy for having little to no dairy in it, and it was icy.

This little ice-cream place was owned by an artist, so it doubled as his gallery. It was quite fun. If someone came in from the street, the door would 'ding ding', and he'd set down his brushes and serve them the ice-cream they wanted.

His art encompassed a wide variety of styles. It was a fun treat! (In addition to our WINE ice-cream, of course!)

Sooo, then after all that, we met our tour guide back at a predetermined Plaza, and began our trip back. Really, the tour was fantastic until that point. It wasn't like it got worse, or terrible, but when my tour-guide met back up with us smelling like he'd smoked pound$$$ of pot, I lost a little faith!
(we noticed it's an acceptable trend, but still surprising when you walk around corners and just WHAM get slammed with it!) It's illegal though.

We stopped a couple more places on the way back to Salta- One in the canyon again- to see a formation, known as "Devil's Throat"... I'm not going to post pictures because the perspective is a little hard to understand, but there was another formation we stopped at (on the way there) that I forgot the name of, but has better pictures:

Above: Walking into the formation
Below: Paul staring up at its massiveness! This is one example of the fisheye lens being handy!

Below: A picture of me! Yay!

Oh! I found a picture of Devil's Throat I apparently thought was good enough to upload:

Like I said- the perspective is hard- it was like a cavern got cocked on it's side. Paul is standing vertical, and then it goes back... Almost like when the tectonic plates collided, pushing up these mountains, it pushed this cavern up and left it tilted on the side. It was Interesting!

As we drove back toward Salta, one of the last formations we saw was called "The Castle"