Cafayate y Los Quilmes

I was given little time to actually relax during my weekend excursion. I woke up at 5am on Friday morning to catch a 7am bus to Cafayate. The four-hour bus ride consisted solely of twists and turns. I did my best to sleep despite the unheated bus and no light in the bathroom. However, one upside to the unsettling bus ride was the view. The trip runs through la Quebrada de las Conchas. This route can be traced back to the Incas and runs between breathtaking rock formations in strong contrasting colors. The entire valley ranges from mountain deserts to subtropical forests.

Upon arrival at Cafayate, a popular pueblo for tourism, I found my hostal. I asked the owner what options I had to visit Las Ruinas de Quilmes. She asked if I wanted to go right then—so I did. I ended up making the one-hour trip to the Tucuman province with an Argentinean driver and 5 French tourists. When we arrived, the driver introduced us as students from Buenos Aires, making the entrance fee only 5 pesos, instead of 10 for non-Argentineans.

Las Ruinas de Quilmes are the ruins of the citadel created by the Quilmes Indians, an indigenous tribe in northwestern Argentina. They resisted all Incan invasions, and resisted against the Spaniards for 130 years before finally being defeated in 1667. The ruins cover an entire mountainside with hundreds of paths weaving in and out of the homes. It’s no wonder that this tribe was able to resist for so long. The invaders could only attack from one side, and with so many paths up and around the mountain that the Quilmes must have known all too well, the intruders never stood a chance. Luckily I was able to explore alone, and climbed up the two peaks on either side of the mountain—the view was incredible.

I came back to the town center, visited the Cathedral, and shopped in the endless amount of tourist stores. While tourist shops are fun to visit, they easily become repetitive, making it harder to find a unique gift. It did help that I went at the low season of tourism (January-March is high season), even though within less than a day, the hostal owner changed my room three times to accommodate for incoming travelers. Also, it appears that the most tourists tend to come from France and Germany.