Moving on from Salta, our next stop was Cafayate, a small wine town about 189 kilometres southish of Salta. It’s not that far away distance-wise, but the drive took a good 9-10 hours, partly because we took a roundabout route through a small town called Cachi, made lots of stops (lots of amazing scenery!), and 80% of the road from Cachi to Cafayate was unpaved.
Following on from my Salta post, the morning after our free day in the city, a private driver/guide picked us up early in the morning to take a trip to the Humahuaca Valley, taking in the small town of Purmamarca and the Salinas Grandes salt flats.
With Antarctica off the cards, instead of going home or staying in Buenos Aires (while a great city, I don’t think we could’ve spent two full weeks there), we had to decide what we were going to do instead.
Our travel agent was very helpful – they had an office in Buenos Aires, so we dropped in for a chat – and less than an hour later we had an alternative itinerary for the rest of our time in Argentina, with our first stop being Salta.
After spending the day walking around Buenos Aires, that night we headed to Palermo Hollywood for a three course “interactive dinner”.
Now if you’re anything like me, the words “interactive dinner” are a bit off putting (and weird and maybe scary – hey I just want to be served dinner, I don’t want to have to work for it) but! the evening was a lot of fun and *exactly* what we needed to take our minds off the fact that – 8 hours before we were due to fly to Ushuaia – the flights website we’d used *still* hadn’t confirmed that the Ushuaia leg was indeed cancelled (and therefore didn’t affect our flight back to Australia if we didn’t show up). No stress indeed.
Our latest holiday was meant to be the Grand Antarctic Adventure.
Unfortunately we were hit with a string of back luck, with not just one but two cancelled cruises (on different companies and for different reasons).
The first one was cancelled a week before we were due to leave, but we were able to book on a different one with a rather expensive deviation to our flight plans.
The second one, hilariously (I can laugh about it now, it’s been three weeks), was cancelled while we were in transit to Buenos Aires and we received notification after checking into our hotel.
With all other voyages full, and the fact that we were already in Argentina and had limited choices to make regarding flights, the Grand Antarctic Adventure was over before it had even begun.
Alastair and I are going on holiday tonight, yay! It’s great but it reminds me that I never got around to blogging the rest of our Alaskan / Rockies trip from last year.
But you know what! It’s never too late! Because, beyond anything, this blog is a good, self-indulgent, memory bank for me of food we’ve eaten and holidays we’ve taken over the past eight years.
Back in January when we went to Nelson, one of the places Annette and Terry took us to was Jester House cafe. They won an award for top cafe in NZ in 2013/14.
You know how Melbourne cafes have a certain ~~thing~~ in common – the coffee, the food, a certain kind of aesthetic with the decor? Jester House Cafe is nothing like that. No blond wood, exposed bricks, or single origin coffee here.
They have a cafe cat – but more impressively and much more quirky – they also have tame eels! How many cafes do you know that can claim that?
Throwback to our Alaskan cruise holiday last year.
The second port was Skagway – a small town of about 900 people. The population doubles during the summer tourist season as it’s a popular stop for cruise ships, with almost a million visitors going through the town.
In 1898, due to the Klondike Gold Rush, Skagway was the largest city in Alaska with a population of ~10,000, but the gold rush only lasted for three years.
Hello! We return to sunny, lovely, Nelson where on one of the evenings Annette and Terry took Alastair and I out to dinner.
This was our view during the night.
Oh Nelson, stop it.
We were at Harbour Lights Bistro, located on the waterfront (as you can probably tell from that photo) and it used to be a dairy (milkbar for the non-kiwis) before being converted into a restaurant. That view is wasted on a dairy, so I dare say it was a good change.
Alastair and I celebrated Australia Day this year by getting out of the country, taking an extended long weekend to visit Alastair’s mum and step-dad in beautiful Nelson.
What better way to celebrate Australia Day than by heading across the ditch?