Back to the holiday Part 3

So after spending a very windy but very enjoyable afternoon wandering along the Quebrada de Cafayate, we retired to a local restaurant, ate local food and drank local wine - muy bueno (or is it bien? who knows? not me).

The next day we were up early and in a jeep to The Ruins at Quilmes. As well as being a town in the province of Buenos Aires (not to be confused with the city of Buenos Aires, called by the locals Capital Federal), Quilmes is one of the national beers (and a very nice one too). It seems that the Quilmes were a tribe of indigenous people who were driven out of a very fertile valley by the invading Spanish so that they (the Spanish) could exploit the mineral wealth. They did this by cutting off the water supply. The Quilmes were relocated to a place in Buenos Aires province - hence the name of the town (where the connection to the beer came from I'm not sure).


Anyway, in the morning we went to the ruins, the weather was cold and overcast but that was a pleasant contrast to the previous day. The site was enormous but it's difficult to give a clear impression of the scale because the living area hasn't been fully excavated. Although most of the buildings were stone, they've been buried by the movement of soil in the (don't know how many) years since the place was abandoned. I only took a couple of digi-photos. Here we were on a hill looking down over the main part of the settlement.

Here's another shot from a little higher up. We walked up this pathway (with stone steps at various points) following a guide who said he was one of the team who originally excavated this site. He gave some information (in Spanish) and then left us to it. The others in the group, including L, decided they wanted to walk further up the hill (or mountain as I preferred to call it) and down the other side. I decided not to join them. Remember my 'going down' problem? Well, if I'm with other people, I tend to get whiney and annoying. If I'm alone I talk myself down, counteracting my fear with sensible words. In this case I'm glad I didn't go further up because they couldn't find the path and ended up coming down the way I did but from considerably much higher up.

While they were wandering around the mountain (ok, technically not a mountain but a long bloody way up), I was wandering around the ruins themselves. It was very interesting. It seems likely that the inhabitants spent most of the time outside, retiring inside to sleep etc. Now you may have noticed the prevalence of cacti in the photos. This is quite easily explained, wherever there is or was human habitation, there will be cacti. This is because humans eat the cacti fruit, the seeds pass through the body and are deposited with ready made fertiliser. You may even recognise the cacti as the kind seen in Western movies. What you may not realise is just how big they get.....




I'm just there to provide scale and, despite what the photo might indicate, I was as close to that plant as any human could be without injury. They range from small and cute to bloody ginormous. They start as a single column and then bud off the main one to form the familiar 'hands up' shape.

At the site, the government have also built a beautiful hotel. It is truely lovely, with lots of detail in the design. I didn't take any photos but you can see some pictures here. It's the sort of place I'd like to spend my honeymoon (unlikely as I am to ever have such an excuse).

In the afternoon we went back to Cafayate, shopped, ate and drank, slept like babies and, the next day, boarded the bus back to Salta.