Cafayate

After a couple days of chill time in Salta (reading the paper on the plaza over a coffee, pressed OJ, & little pastries as well as going to a few movies...only 3 or 4 of us in the room each time...big huge comfy theater...$4 a seat... too expensive though for locals and probably not fun since not dubbed for them), I made it back to Cafayate....is that a run-on sentence or what!?

Cafayate is that cute little town I had visited for a night last week....the one in the middle of the vineyards at the foot of the pre-Andes mountains. The town is based around this huge square with cafes and artisanal shops all around. At first sight, it might look like a tourist trap of a town, but actually the tourists are mostly Argentinians! After a few days there, I was already making friends either from the empanada house (the best in town...with goat cheese even....such creative recipes...it's like crepes, you can make them with whatever filling inspires you!) or from walking through the canyon (beautiful hike to hidden cascades...felt like canyons in a Western movie...the cactus, the red rocks, and tons of those feather plants, like the one if front of my house...in France) or from the hostal. On Tuesday, the Argentinians staying at the hostal decided to cook an asado....mind you it was 9pm and I was having wine and cheese (ie: my dinner), but for them eating at 11pm is totally normal...so I essentially had 2 dinners that night. So much fun though... I'll post the pics soon...the 2 guys from the hostal prepared everything...heating the coal in a ' brouette' (can't remembre the word in english) and then cooking all this meat... filet mignon is famous of course but really mostly eaten in restaurants...at home Argentinians cook all sorts of cuts, some favorites being boudin and sausages. Tons of wine too needless to say. Went dancing in this abandonned building turned disco...no roof...so felt like dancing outdoors- fun! And in bed around 7am or so. It's still dark then, so you feel like it's a decent hour to go to sleep....except your roommates are getting up in an hour or two....so very short night!

One of the reasons I went back to Cafayate was to take part in the Serenadas festival, 3 days of folklore music concerts. On Mon, Tues, Wed, the town hosted little concerts on the main square...for the local bands to play...quite cute to see some of the younger ones sing...others really need to keep their day jobs... And then, on Thurs, Fri, Sat, it's the official festival. People from all over the region show up...most of them end up camping...although not like Woodstock or anything...it's a pretty well organized event...campsites & co. A few blocks from my hostal, this empty lot got turned into concert venue...the real deal with a big stage, lights, good sono & co. There were about 100 chairs set up in front of the stage, but most locals get the 'popu' tickets ($5)..which is more fun if you ask me... you can walk around, dance, get some food or drinks (asados everywhere of course!). Outside the concert venue, the streets are closed off with vendors and food stands all over. Also all the empty walls are covered by Serenadas and drawings (not graffitis, but well written poems with pics to illustrate the theme). Great atmosphere!

Now for the music.... it's folklore music (could be Bolivian, Peruvian, Chilean...as long as it's rooted with the Andean culture)... there were about 30 bands or so per night... started at 10pm ish and lasted until 7am!! Crazy... some bands got to play at 6am!!! And it's still packed!! For the first few hours, it was mix of the more rock type music and the tradional folklore music, with songs to the Pachamama (mother earth) and to the vendimia or to prosperity (some sounded like American Indian chants... I hope I'm not offending anyone writing this... poems chanted like a lamentation...) or the Cumbre, the local folklore dance where men and women dance in pairs, courting each other by teasing each other with a hanckerchief. The men wear all white, puffy pants and Spanish type jacket with a red & black blanket over their shoulder, as well as these cowboy boots that have an accordeon type of texture to them. During the dance, they perform this elaborate tap dancing routine... it almost felt like Riverdance. As the night goes on though, the bands are more rock-like...so by 3am the audience is totally excited. The young ones sing all the words and jump up and down...like at any concert you might say...but it felt special, because the music definitively felt folkloric, yet people from all ages were enjoying it (tons of families earlier in the night too). Anyways, as you might suspect, I once again ended up going to bed as the sun was coming out. And no, these were not nights of excess!!! just fun entertainment. After 2 nights though, I hit my quota. The town was getting more and more crowded. The first night was actually more fun as you could walk around easily....by friday though you were elbowing everyone and drunk people were bumping into you...so I skipped out on Saturday, the biggest night of all. Instead I headed 5hrs south to Tucuman....decided to get a good night's sleep before my night bus to Mendoza. Unfortunately the AC was blasting on the bus down, so now I have a stupid cold (well, the short nights probably didn't help either!).

Nothing much to report on Tucuman... ugly city...important though because this is were the Independence was signed...but other than that, it's super hot & humid...no mountain air & no relief at night... no cinemas either!!! sniff sniff... but anyways, off tomorrow night...looking forward to the bus ride... the movies & the bingo!!

The Vendimia just started in Mendoza...tons of parades, food fairs, and other events around the Harvest. Should be fun!