Based on friends´recommendations who described Cafayate as a quiet little town surrounded by amazing scenery, I headed there from Salta. But my weekend there coincided with La Serenata music festival so the town was anything but quiet! As this was one of the last weeks of the summer holidays (schools re-open on 1 March), the plaza was constantly packed with people, many of whom were engaged in a constant foam and flour fight. As well as going to the festival, where I saw the main act Jorge Rojas (a slightly sleazy, cheesy, tap-dancing folk crooner), during my time in Cafayate I did some free wine tasting at a local vineyard and I hiked up a river to a waterfall. Drinking wine and cooling off from the heat by plunging into freezing water would prove to be the theme of my few weeks in Argentina.
My next stop was Mendoza, a nice plaza-filled, tree-lined city. The highlight of my time there was the day I spent cycling with five people from the UK between a dozen or so vineyards. After several little tours and explanations and multiple tastings, my appreciation of good quality, cheap wine was certainly enhanced - the same could not be said of my cycling ability.I continued south to the Lake District, centred around the pretty town of Bariloche. What an amazing place! I happily spent ten days in this most scenic of areas. The weather, which apparently had been bad just before I arrived, was gloriously sunny the whole time I was there.
I first spent a few days doing treks, cycling and relaxing by lakes. I then teamed up with a girl from Devon for a three-day cycling and camping trip of the "Seven Lakes". We covered 150kms, about 40kms of which were on ripio, i.e. unpaved, rocky roads. Cycling uphill on those roads with panniers full of camping equipment on the back of my bike was a challenge, but the scenery made it totally worth it. The only downside was that my camera was stolen from a bag on my bike when I left it unattended for five minutes at one of our campsites. But luckilyI had backed up all my photos the day before and the camera is covered by my travel insurance, so it wasn´t a big deal. My time in the Lake District, and that three-day cycle in particular, has been a highlight of the first six months of my travels.
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