It's been far too long since we last posted something meaty here, and now that we have a free day (and a reliable wifi connection), I wanted to do some catching up. Brace yourself because I got a little verbose on this one. Thankfully I broke it up with pictures, so for those with less patience (ahem, Val) it should easier to digest.
As always, the full photo album is here. Enjoy!
Salta
It's easy to reflect fondly on the Salta province as there were some great "firsts" for us there:
- First time without extended plans
- First time taking a bus
- First time taking a taxi
- First time finally "getting it" when people rave about Argentine steak
But it was also a great time to be in a town that was big, but not overly touristy. Sure, the center of Salta has tons of tour operations, tourist trap restaurants, etc. But if you walk literally 3 blocks in any other direction, you're in a regular neighborhood, with regular people doing regular things.
We spent 5 days in Salta; the capital city of the province by the same name, at a delightful apartment (thanks AirBnB!) about 5 blocks from the city center.
*Side note about city centers, apparently this had to do with the Spanish influence when they were building cities throughout South America. There's a specific rhyme/reason to how they're constructed. Every city has a square park as it's hub. To the north is almost always a church, which coincidentally helped quite a bit for directions. Then there's usually 4 pathways from the corners of the park leading to some central feature (statue, fountain, etc). This was extremely common in every city we went to in Argentina and also in Chile.
Checking Into our Apartment
When we checked into our apartment we asked our host where the good places to eat are. In a very normal and realistic way, she responded "about 5 blocks east is the city center, and you'll have a number of tourist restaurants that do a good job and you'll have a good meal. But, if you really want a great meal and to eat where the locals eat, go about 1km to the west and you'll run into La Casona del Molino. The food there is excellent and it's a favorite neighborhood place. Local musicians play music there as well. I'm usually there 2-3 nights a week."That was pretty convincing to us. More to come on this majestic Casona Del Molino.
Salta - Walking Around
We stayed in the heart of the fun stuff of Salta thanks to Trip Advisor. Since I have no desire to drive in a third world country, let alone a first world country, we just walked everywhere. Add to that the city center was so close, it was easy to cruise a few blocks over to cafes, restaurants, banks, hair salons, kiosks, whatever.
We saw some pretty interesting stuff while walking around, as displayed below:
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| Just a guy on a motorcycle, carrying a weed whacker. Ya know, everyday stuff. |
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| Some sort of parade or demonstration. Due to our poor Spanish, it was just amusing instead of inspiring. |
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| SO many platform shoes! It's like there isn't another female shoe option in Argentina. |
The Local Catedral
It was evening when we first got to the city center, and we came across this beauty, the local Catedral or Cathedral. I'm sure there was a significance and history to this beautiful house of worship, but it was night time and it was closed, so we just snapped a few photos, enjoyed it's splendor and went to get some touristy food at a local restaurant. |
| Dr.'s note - the event planner in me was loving the uplighting |
Later on in our trip, we found out when the Cathedral was open and took a peek inside. I'm sure anyone who has done a lot of traveling in predominantly Catholic countries has seen their fair share of churches, but because we haven't yet, this one was pretty impressive.
This place was beautiful! It was clearly the jewel in the crown of the capital city of the Salta province. It was big, had specific tourist hours vs. worship hours, and people would line up at opening time to view it and share a moment with the big guy upstairs.
The Rest of the City Square
When we finished enjoying this monument, we walked outside and were greeted by the city square in the daylight.
Although we have never been to Europe, it had a certain European flavor to it, at least in architecture.
This was also the cultural hub of Salta, including the MAAM, the region's museum dedicated to the native people of the area of northern Argentina, Chile and Peru. Andrea skipped this one, and since they wouldn't let cameras in I don't have any photos of it, but it was a little creepy. I saw a mummified 6 year old child. It was disturbing to say the least.
Although staring at the remains of an ancient child was certainly a different twist in my normal day, it was interesting reading about him, because different than a "sacrifice", it was seen as an honor in the native community to be sent as a gift to the mountain (the mountains were known as gods) so that the gods would bestow rain and a great harvest in the coming months. Definitely different than the stories of ritual sacrifice where someone's gotta go to keep the gods from getting pissed, this was a more positive spin on the scenario.
La Casona del Molino
So this was the restaurant our AirBnB host guided us to. The night had come, we were ready for a locals experience. We decided against getting a cab as we needed the exercise anyway and hoofed the 1.2km or so from our place to the restaurant. Minus the beads of sweat from exertion and the warm weather, it was quite a pleasant walk heading through the neighborhoods to our destination.The restaurant itself was a large rambling 1-story house converted into a restaurant. You walk into the entryway where there are maybe 4 or 5 tables to your left, another 8 or so in front of you, then a door leading outside. The outside was big and held probably 30 or so tables, just enough to squeeze in next to the huge outdoor parrilla (grill). We found ourselves in a prime location outside, but within eye and earshot of the inside, ideal for Dr.'s favorite past time of people watching.
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| Enjoying the national beverage of Argentina, Fernet Branca y Coca |
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| Apparently Argentines drink so much Fernet, they built a factory to produce it in Argentina Dr.'s note - Fernet is, um, an acquired taste. To me is tastes like syrupy mix of black licorice, bitters, and about 40 unknown spices. While it isn't half bad when cut with coke (the liquid, not the powder), you can definitely feel the diabetes creeping closer with each sip :) |
After settling into a fernet/coke and a glass of wine, we were ready for all things parrilla. We ordered our grub and watched the locals file in. By 9:45 or so, the place was humming. All tables full, grill was going strong and merriment was all around us. Then, out of nowhere, we hear a beautiful baritone backed by a nylon string guitar gracefully strum out what appeared to be an old Argentine classic. While we had seen plenty of "street musicians" who randomly pull up to restaurants, sing a few songs, try to collect money from the patrons, then leave, this was literally a guy having dinner who brought his guitar and felt inclined to belt out a ditty. According to our AirBnB host, these were just local musicians who wanted to share their gift, and this was their stage. Shortly after a thunderous applause, we hear another guitar and beautiful voice serenading us from inside. We were in the best seats of the house! Of course we continued to drink, eat and enjoy this scenario as it was easily the best meal we had in Argentina.
Oh yea, the meal!
I ordered the ojo de bife (ribeye) and Andrea got a mixed broschetta (meat & veggie skewer) and our expectations were honestly pretty low. We had eaten at one of the "best" steakhouses in Buenos Aires, had eaten steak at hole-in-the-wall eateries, and still had yet to fully grasp what people were talking about when they said Argentina had the best steak in the world. Then when we least expected it, it finally happened. Holy shit it was amazing!!!
It was like I had just tried steak for the first time in my life. Between Andrea's mixed plate and my ribeye, it was a celebration of all things beef. Tender and well salted with zero other seasoning, the flavor of the meat just sang on the plate and on the palate. I can't quite describe the exact flavor as we ate there like a month ago now, but that was definitely a meal that haunts me. It easily found it's place in the top 3 meals of my life. And all for under $100 USD. I would go back to Salta just to eat here, it was so damned good.
Heading South to Wine Country!
The next morning we recovered from the meat sweats and were about to embark on our countryside tour of northwest Argentina. We found a tour guide, compliments to my sister's good buddy from CA who grew up in Salta, who would take us on a wine/scenic tour of the Salta province. We would depart from Salta, head south to Cafayate, up the Calchaqui valley to the mountain town of Cachi, then back to Salta. On a map, it seemed pretty reasonable....By this point, we had come to realize that being late is an Argentine custom and while you should definitely be prepared to leave on time, don't be surprised when things run late. At first this annoyed me, but after a while, there's a certain Argentinian IDGAF charm to it. Our tour guide was roughly 20 minutes late and gave me zero communication that she was running late. We simply stood in the lobby of our apartment building, with our luggage, looking and wondering what the hell was going on.
Eventually we were greeted by our English translator, Fidel, who grabbed our bags and helped us to our chariot, captained by the tiny ball of energy known as Silvia.
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| Our chariot - the Toyota Hilux blazoned with the "Chiwanku Tours" logo |
Silvia, we later learned, shared some similarities to our story in that she worked her ass off in life, hit her breakpoint, and left a successful career for her passion. She was a real estate agent in Buenos Aires until one day she had
enough, shuttered her doors and moved to the tiny mountain town of Cachi. She was a petite, rugged, outdoorsy Porteño (the term for someone who was born and raised in Buenos Aires) and had some great stories to share on our multi-day trek.
* Dr.'s note - when she picked us up she was already blasting a Gorillaz CD (remember this song?), so I knew we were in good hands.
Fidel was the son of some friends of hers, and had just finished his degree from the local University. He was staying with his family for a few months before he figured out his next step in life, had a good grasp on the English language, and (because we paid extra for it) she brought him along to translate the experience into our native language.
As we departed from Salta to begin our journey, we hadn't had a chance to grab breakfast, so we asked for a quick pitstop. Silvia found a nicer gas station on the way out of town and we grabbed a few medialunas (Argentine croissant made with lard instead of butter, which was the breakfast staple of the country) and an espresso. I was amazed that this gas station didn't just open a packet of Nespresso freeze-dried coffee. Oh NO, they were high class! They had a 2 bay espresso machine and were pumping out espresso based drinks for all the truckers and tourists passing through. It seemed impressive that they didn't cut corners on their coffee and made the investment to buy a multi-thousand dollar espresso machine. Well played, Salta. Well played.
Anyhoo, apparently a few weeks of travel will remove all idea of time and space as I had thought our trip from Salta to Cafayate would be maybe 1-2 hours, like driving from the bay area to Napa or Seattle to Bellingham. So you can imagine my surprise when I asked Silvia how long until we arrive, and she responded with "about 6 hours." 6 effing hours?! Well, at least the scenery was nice.
We of course shared stories of who we are, where we're from, etc. which made the drive more pleasant, even if it was unexpectedly long. When we found pause in our conversation, I asked Silvia if she had any tunes she could put on.
We arrive at our first stop about 2 hours south of Salta. It was a natural rock formation that had been carved out by wind and water over many thousands of years, and created this beautiful little mountain valley.
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| Andrea and I for scale |
There were some local vendors in there selling "handicrafts" and various trinkets, but I think they were really there to just beat the heat, as the inside of this area was well shaded from the afternoon sun.
After a brief walk around, we ventured forward to our next destination not terribly far down the highway, which proved to be pretty awesome.
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| Hopefully this works. It's a Google sphere (click on the photo), basically a multi picture view strung into one experience. |
The acoustics in this place were incredible! You could hear everything in a beautiful and balanced way. There was a guy in here playing guitar and singing (the person to the left on the photos) and it sounded incredible. Andrea was sure he was hooked up to an amp. But nope, this was just Mother Nature's little concert venue, formed by wind, water and time. There's a video of it in the photo album. Apparently during the nicer months, people perform actual concerts in here because the acoustics are nearly perfect.
After 6 hours on the road, we FINALLY made it to Cafayate. A note about the pronunciation of Cafayate is that in Argentina, different than any other latin american country, they pronounce the "y" sound as a "chah" sound. The word Cafayate, phonetically looks more like Cah-fa-chah-tay, which proved to be incredibly fun to say, especially when pronounced with gusto (CafaCHYAtay!)
Upon arrival, we were to check out a wine museum, hit a tasting room or two, grab a bite to eat, then head to the hotel to retire for the evening. Our night didn't exactly follow this recipe.
Because it was low season for this wine region (Calchaqui valley, famous for it's Torrontes wine) there were NO wineries open. Zero. Zilch. Nada. -1 to Silvia for poor planning.
Instead, we ended up checking in early to our hotel, then headed to the wine museum. I didn't take any pics of the interior of the museum, but it was very pretty and rather arrogant. It's like they hired an American marketing executive to write their descriptions, just overly verbose and obnoxiously poetic. At least Dr. and I found it incredibly amusing (Dr.'s note - if I see wine described one more time as "poetry" or "emotion" I will barf).
We then hopped back in the car and drove up the road another 10 minutes to a very nice looking bodega that used to be some famous person's house (governor, Spanish diplomat, something like that). It was a beautiful property, so we sat down on the patio of the house restaurant, ordered a bottle of Torrontes and watched the sun set. At least Silvia finally found us wine :)
One silver lining to this place was they had some house "pets" to which Andrea quickly meandered (aka sprinted) over to survey the scene.
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| With the Argentine pronunciation of the "y" sound, these became "Chyamas" |
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| Meow |
All-in-all, it was a pretty pleasant way to wind down from a day's worth of travel in the back seat of a pick-up.
Then came dinner.
We went back to the city square (again, square with pathways to the center, but no church oddly enough) and found a Parrilla (a restaurant that focuses on grilled food as Parrilla means "grill"). We muddled our way through a Spanglish conversation with Silvia and Fidel, which was pretty fun, but I think we were all a little exhausted by this point. Thankfully we had some live music to entertain us. At first there was a guitarist who played who turned out to be quite the comedian. However, the story really lies with the old man on the Sexyphone.
This guy was drunk before he found his way to the mic. He had a few pre-recorded tracks on his computer that played some tune and he would "play" his saxophone alongside it. While the music itself was nothing to write home about, he was so drunk that he couldn't figure out how to articulate the microphone down to the horn part of his instrument.
Then, we were bestowed with a gift from the comedy gods. During the 4 songs he played in 40 minutes, he would randomly pause mid-song and embark on these rambling stories about love, politics, women, family, whatever drifted into his mind via a river of wine he consumed. It was an epic train-wreck. Definitely one of the best/worst open mic nights we'd ever seen. There's a video in the photo album that hopefully will do it some justice, but I can't describe how amusing this guy was. It totally made our day.
Heading North to Cachi
After spending the night in our amazing hotel, we were picked up and hit the road to Cachi. Because the highway between Cafayate and Cachi is almost entirely unpaved (apparently not uncommon in these parts of the world), the trip took roughly 8 GD bumpy hours. Oof. Thankfully we diverted our path to this awesome winery called Colomé, owned by the same guy who owns Hess winery in Napa. Apparently, Colomé is the lifeblood of the area and pretty much supplies jobs and existence to the locals in this otherwise arid desert.*Side note about northern Argentina red wine - it tasted like shit. Literally. The area is known for it's Torrontes, which is a lighter white wine and was pleasant to drink. The red wine of the area (mostly Cab Sav, Merlot, Cab Franc, etc) has a very distinct terroir. While every wine maker from the Calchaqui valley claims that the high elevation (about 8,000 ft or so) gives it such amazing and special characteristics, for me, it all tasted like it was filtered through a fresh cow pie. I couldn't finish a glass of the stuff, and barely got it past my nose to my mouth. Chalk it up to experience.
The high point of Colomé was it's light museum, created by famed San Francisco artist James Turrell. If you've ever seen Drake's "Hotline Bling" video, this was the guy who created the beautiful light changing boxes that Drake performs his terrible dancing in. The James Turrell exhibition is actually a bigger draw than the winery (we met a guy from the states who came specifically to Argentina to see this place). They take your phones and cameras as you enter, so we don't have any photos of it, but they wouldn't have done justice anyway. This place was amazing. The guy is the real deal when it comes to light and sensory perception and if you find yourself near an exhibit of his, go out of your way to see it. You won't be disappointed.
Once we wrapped up at Colomé, we headed north into the little mountain town of Cachi, home to our tour guides Silvia and Fidel. They dropped us off at our hotel to spend the evening alone in Cachi, which was pretty welcomed at this point. Silvia mentioned there were local celebrations throughout the Salta province that particular weekend to celebrate some local religious heroes. Cachi was no exception to this and supposedly "the entire town was coming out" that night to be a part of it (it was a Saturday, after all). We thought little of her comments, as this was a tiny, tiny town, so we checked in, then made our way into "downtown" to check the sights, grab a bevvy and a snack and figure out what we wanted to do for the evening.
We walked down the street to the city square (4 walkways, church to the north, etc) and on the walk, we saw a bunch of guys on ladders wiring up big horn speakers on top of wooden poles. Not quite sure what was going on, we just kept walking, trying to avoid getting shocked from the random wires hanging. I'm not sure how to translate work-site safety, but it hadn't made it's way to Cachi as of yet.
As we got the city center, we were greeted by these three gigantic structures of dried cactus that were undoubtedly going to be burned at some point. Seeing that they were lined up directly in front of the church, we knew something good was going to happen that evening, so we wanted to stick around to get a feel for the night (and possibly witness this entire town burn to the ground).
We settled upon a fantastic little restaurant a block away from the church that was run by a very funny 30-something restauranteur from Buenos Aires that wanted to get away from the busy life, so he opened this place a few years back.
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| Go here and eat empanadas. Seriously, they were the best we've had to date. |
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| An omen apparently on the day of religious celebration |
This guy set us up properly. I decided to continue my new found enjoyment of Fernet & Coke and Andrea with a glass of wine and quickly found out that this guy's Fernet pour was no joke. It was roughly 3/4's of a 12 oz glass with 2 ice cubes of booze. Aggressive, to say the least. When asked if I wanted "pequito mas" after his pour, I of course said "si." He then informed us that the local slang for this liquid generosity was something that sounded like "Changuine." I now had a basically full glass of Fernet Branca with a bottle of coke to cut it with. When I asked Andrea after he walked away what that word was, she informed me that it sounded something like John Wayne. We both chuckled and enjoyed our view and amazing empanadas.
Hot damn these empanadas were good. Like, really good. To date, between all of Argentina, Chile and the first few days in Peru, we have not had an empanada that touched the ethereal flavor of these pockets of magic. It must have been made with adorable baby seals or something as they were inappropriately good. (Dr.'s note - I incorrectly assumed that South American cuisine would have some heat to it, but everything except these empanadas have been quite bland. They don't like spicy anything here.)
So, our guy comes back after I polish off the probably 3 servings of liquor and asks if I want another one. Considering we're not driving anywhere and I was ready to party, I of course obliged. He poured another stiff one, and asked if I remembered what he told me earlier. I told him "John Wayne" which prompted a good laugh and another pour that would tip the cap of any professional drinker.
After another round of empanadas, we settle up and headed towards the action.
By this point, the city square had brought every walk of life from the city and countryside to celebrate. We found a great spot to kick back and see the stage that was erected, waiting for something good to happen, i.e. light that cactus up! (Note to Nicole - it light up!)
We sat through probably 45 minutes or so of singing, communion and then a parade. Then, all of a sudden it happened. Ay dios mio, it happened!
Each of these cacti structures was probably 15 ft tall and created a big and beautiful bonfire. Hopefully you can see from the photos, the quantity of people that were around to see this action. They had music playing, the pastor making some form of commentary and generally good vibes all around. It was a fiesta, for sure.
After the fires, people began with dancing, eating street food, and generally enjoying each other's company. As we weren't really ready to cut a rug with the locals, we ended up heading back to our hotel shortly after and called it a night. Similar to Cafayate, one circumstantial event in the evening totally made the crazy long drive worth it.
Waking up in Cachi
The next morning, we got back in the car to check out a winery, as this whole trip was, in theory, a "wine tour." Although it was about 10am, I am no stranger to day drinking, so we were both ready to jump into what we were told was "the best winery in the valley." A bold statement, but Silvia had quite a passion for wine, so we were pretty excited to test it out.
After a 30 minute or so drive through the lush Cachi countryside, we arrive at the Miraluna winery. The winery itself sat atop the valley staring down into the fields of corn, wildflowers, pumpkin and other crops. It was also fairly high in elevation (Cachi is roughly 8,300 ft in altitude), nestled up against the local mountain range.
All-in-all, a very scenic spot. Shocker, Andrea quickly found the local winery dog, Luna.
We started with a winery tour. The tasting room attendant spoke about the winery, the equipment, their boutique style, how they get their aging barrels, etc. Pretty standard stuff. After the winery overview, we get into the cave to see the barrels and bottles doing their magic.
By this point, I'm getting a little thirsty. My body had rid itself of most of the Fernet from the night before and I was ready to jump into the best vino the Calchaqui valley has to offer. But first, we walk out onto the vineyard itself.
While I was getting a little annoyed that we had been there for an hour and hadn't seen an open bottle anywhere, it was pretty fun to physically walk through an active vineyard. We got to touch the soil and eat the different types of grapes (which turned out to be pretty tasty) and get an explanation of their winemaking style and the terroir of the area.
Then, the moment arrived, we walk back to the tasting room. Finally!.... to find that they aren't tasting any wine. None. Apparently because the winery is so new, the wine maker didn't want to showcase their wine while it's still so young (2014 was their first year and had only been in the bottle for a few weeks). Again, Silvia, wtf?! Is her score now at -2 or -3? We went on a wine tour, saw literally one winery and tasted zero wine.
So, after our disappointing wrap-up at Miraluna, we hit the road for our 3 hour drive back to Salta. Much like the other two huge road trips, the scenery was really impressive. The colors in the mountains descending from Cachi to Salta were beautiful and plentiful.
Going Going Back Back to Salta Salta
After a few hours, we ended up safe and sound back in Salta, ready to head towards our next journey, an overnight bus trip to Cordoba.
While it was mildly amusing that we took a wine tour without tasting any wine, we did have an amazing time in Salta, Cafayate and Cachi. Memories not soon forgotten, photos to remind us of the natural beauty of the area and the best damned steak that Argentina has to offer.
Until next time, amigos, where we reflect on our visit to Cordoba, the 2nd largest city in Argentina and a HUGE college town (roughly 350,000 students).
Ciao,
AT y La Médica
