Cachi

The 7 hour drive from Jujuy was one of the nicest we’ve done. We passed through desert, semi-tropical rain forest, spectacular mountains and pampas, and more desert landscapes. On the way down, we stopped in the cute town of La Caldera to visit the huge Jesus statue on the hill and enjoyed a very good lunch of tamales and empanadas at a roadside restaurant where the entire family was seated at a table in the yard making up the empanadas. Yum! We also saw a very large iguana and tarantula on the road during our drive. No pictures because there wasn’t a safe place to stop, but we love seeing critters. We also saw wild burros in the desert. Cute!
Cachi overtook San Martin de los Andes as our favorite town in the country. It is a tiny, colonial village with mostly single-story, white-washed adobe buildings – many, like our hotel, had beautiful courtyards behind the subtle walls. You can walk through the entire town in less than 1 hour, but sitting in cafes and watching the local scene is really enjoyable.
There was a very sweet and simple church on the town square where we noticed they were hanging a life-sized man-doll. When we asked what was going on we learned that they were going to “burn the devil” that night. Of course we came out to watch and it was quite an interesting scene that the entire town turned out to witness.Read more