Words actually fall short to describe Rio de Janeiro. But I will do my best to give you an impression about this spectacular city. Of course Rio de Janeiro is famous for it´s carnival and the tiny bikinis at the Copacabana beach, but Rio the Janeiro has so much more to offer than just that.

For one thing, the city itself is beautiful, it is built in between the mountains and this makes an amazing skyline. On one side you have the Sugarloaf Mountain and on the other side there´s Cristo Redentor, a huge statue of Jesus Christ on the hill watching over the richly colored sunny city. A cab driver told me that there´s this competition between people from Sao Paolo (Paulistanos) and the people from Rio the Janeiro (Cariocas), where the Paulistanos say the Cariocas are really lazy and never work and the day the Cariocas start working, Cristo Redentor will clap his hands.

Just at 165 kilometers from Salta is this little town called Cafayate. With its 11.785 inhabitants it´s situated at 1683 meter height and surrounded by vineyards. We drove from Cachi to Cafayate in about 5 hours and this was an amazing trip. You see lama´s crossing the street, loads of peppers that have been put to dry in the sun and of course the most beautiful colored mountains. The feeling you get and the views cannot be described.

Cafayate itself is a great place to stay. For foreigners it´s most famous for its bodegas and torrontes wine, which won a lot of international awards, but in Argentina Cafayate is also well known for its folklore festival every February. We stayed in a very nice hotel called Vieja Posada, which was more like a big country house, rather than a hotel. At this moment they are renovating it at the outside, but inside it was beautiful, with a big patio and excellent rooms.

From Salta we drove through the Calchaquies Valleys to Cachi. This is a beautiful little town with only 5254 inhabitants, situated on 2.280 meter height at the foot of the Andes Mountains. The town itself is lovely, but the most spectacular thing about it, is the trip to Cachi. It is breathtaking! The mountains are so beautiful with all their different colors and shapes. You feel like Lucky Luke, all alone on the prairie. For one moment you see cacti all around you and for the next there is only rocky landscape for as far as you can see. After about a 4 hour drive you arrive in cute little Cachi.