13th February 2015 – Cafayate to Cachi

We had a late check out today and enjoyed the surroundings of the winery resort we stayed in last night. While we are sitting on the verandah of our room overlooking the pool and garden a fox trotted by.  The wildlife the night before was great, armadillo running around and frogs on the walkways.We have a 170 kilometer drive today to Cachi mostly on dirt roads.  The road is going through spectacular sandstone rock formations that are vast and wonderful colours.  It’s a wow at every turn and the photos don’t do the colours justice. We drive through several little villages, some are like ghost towns with tumbled down buildings, but the churches are immaculate.We have a few muddy river bed crossings.As we drive along I catch site of a fox out of the corner of my eye, it seems inquisitive at first but then disappears across the other side of the river bed.We continue driving through narrow passes and start to climb quite high. The size of the rocks dwarf our little MG’s.  We are on the National Route 40 still, and coming into a narrow pass a bus is coming towards us and isn’t going to slow up for anything.As we drive along the high road we look out over a magnificent green valley, which is in stark contrast to the red and pink rocks.  We arrive in a little town and ask for directions to another valley called the Valley of the Coloured Rocks.We decided to take the longer drive through the next valley even though it was getting late and it didn’t disappoint us.   After a 6 hour drive with many photo stops we arrived at our overnight stop which is a fabulous French Provincial style mansion.  What a great day!