Our journey from Salta to Cafayate was a relatively short one as Argentinian journeys go, only 2½ hours but the public bus was a glorified Minivan, a bit more rudimentary than we had hoped for. However, the journey was better than expected as it took us through yet more very spectacular scenery of mountains carved and formed by erosion over countless years. Many of these formations have gained names that refer to the shapes that they suggest, such as 'the windows' or ‘the castles’. The disadvantage of being on a public bus is that you don’t get to stop and take photos so you can’t see ‘the toad’, a massive boulder by the side of the road shaped just like a huge (you guessed it) toad! Our hostel is the aptly-named Ruta 40 and lies in that road with a '4341Km' marker outside the door (although again it doesn't actually feel much like the Panamerican Highway!)

Cafayate lies in an open plain surrounded by substantial hills and mountains. As a result, despite the intense heat, there is actually a fair amount of water coming at intervals from the slopes. This suits the growing of grapes and the town is well-known for its bodegas (wineries) and is therefore a popular tourist spot despite being quite small. It’s a friendly place with a very laid-back feel. We spent a couple of days walking in the area, trying to keep in the shade of trees where possible – it’s still very hot in these parts! Our first outing was to Cerra San Teresita, a smallish hill a short way outside of the town, giving good views over Cafayate and into the distance. All around the town are vineyards, some quite large. Others are much more small scale. On the way back we managed to fit in a trip to Bodega Nanni, a small winery which boasts the claim of being the only organic winery in the area. We had a very brief guided tour and then sampled some of their wines (it would be rude not to do so!).

In most towns that we’ve visited we have managed to fit in a stop at a local heladeria (ice cream parlour) and Cafayate was no exception. However, Helados Miranda takes it all a stage further and produces some very good ice cream made from Torrentés, the local dry white wine. The cabernet ice cream was not so impressive; red wine is probably still best served at room temperature!

On New Year’s Eve our hostel was celebrating by barbequeing huge chunks of dead animal. They said there would be salad, but after our Christmas party food experience in Salta we decided to opt out and do our own thing. We sat on our balcony with our bottle of chiled local Rosé from Bodega Nanni and watched fireworks and chinese lanterns being set off all around us with the backdrop of the mountains. It was not quite as lively and adrenalin inducing as the Christmas firework experience until we were woken at 3.30am by very loud explosions when someone nearby decided it was time to set off a very impressive collection of pyrotechnics! It was worth being woken up for!

Our second walk took us right out of town along long and dusty roads besides vineyards, with little shelter from the searing sun. En-route we passed a roadside shrine which Gauchito Gil was sharing with another Argentinian folk saint who we had heard about but not previously encountered, La Difunta Correa (The Dead Correa). Apparently this woman, named Correa, carried food, water and her baby son as she followed her sickly husband’s batallion through the deserts of San Juan during the civil war of the 1840s. When her meagre supplies ran out she died of thirst, hunger and starvation but when she was found, the baby was still alive and nursing at her breast. This was the first miracle attributed to her but now there are shrines all over the place, particularly favoured by truckers, where people leave gifts and bottles of water to quench her thirst. Here, and we presume at most of these shrines, there are small statutes of the dead woman and her suckling child.

Ever onward, eventually we found the Molino de Piedra (stone mill) that was marked on our map. It turned out to be somewhat less impressive than we had hoped, just the remains of the walls and a stone tank holding muddy water, which was part of the waterway to the original mill. Some young girls were enjoying splashing around in it but it didn’t look too appealing so we left them to it and went and sat in the shade of a nearby tree. They, in turn, entertained us by practicising shouting ‘hello!’ and ‘how are you?’ to us over and over.

However the man-made and dead straight watercourse leading down to this tank was considerably more impressive than the mill itself. We followed it for a couple of kilometres, enjoying the shade of two lines of rather improbable plane trees, the roots of which had been woven and trained to reinforce the sides of the channel (and at one point to form a bridge over the water). We finally reached the river itself and found a complex series of locks and irrigation watercourses channelling the water in different directions. We crossed the river and into the steeper slopes but decided that it was too hot and lacking in shade to attempt the further ascent to the summit at 2700m and retraced our steps. On our return, we calculated that we had actually walked over 10 miles, which is no mean feat in these temperatures! Jen’s sister, Jo and her partner, Rob, got married in England the other day and it is quite strange to see everyone wrapped up in jumpers and coats in the photographs. We’ve kind of forgotten what cold weather is!