Adventures of Trent & Jane

 We have had a busy few days north of Salta in Jujuy province. We based ourselves out of a small town Purmamarca.  When we arrived they where having a festival allowing them to have fun and then bury the devil on Sunday, along with their costumes, this also involved dusting festival goers, lucky we avoided that part of the celebration.     The first day we went to Hornocal, the 14 colors mountain.  We shared a 4x4 ride with a danish family. Michael, Signe and baby Helena.  Great day with magnificent scenery, lamas, mountains.  The next day we walked up to the 7 colors mountain a short jaunt from the hotel, impressive as we were able to be closer.         The  off we went to the salt flats, 60 km away!  What we didn’t realize was that the road went up a pass 4170 meters high!    The salt flats where amazing they have 15000 trenches dug where the salt forms from the soil, volcanic, and they harvest     ...

 Wine tasting in South America is interestingly different. Some bodegas are open and welcome visitors and others seem to make it difficult to get tasting. Many have websites on facebook or instagram but no real information about tasting and visits. We, we did the best we could. We stopped at a winery in the middle of nowhere on our way to Cafayate called Milla7. It has a restaurant so we decided to have lunch and taste. The food is excellent and the wine is pretty good as well, considering the look of the terrain (barren). We stayed a very nice little hotel right in Cafayate, Portal de Santo. The staff was very accommodating and the breakfast was good. Our room overlooked the pool and gardens. Cafayate is a nice little town that it is easy to walk around. Relaxed and friendly. The square is busy each night but not until after 9. There are a few bodegas right in town. Oddly enough we didn’t taste at any of them but we did have their wine with some meals. We did drive west to a coupl...

  Mendoza Part 2 Mendoza is a very comfortable city, we moved hotels so we could walk to the center of the city, plaza independence.    We took a wine tour out to two wineries and an olive oil factory. The first winery, Visitandes, was quite large and the owner had a movie room in the caves! Never thought much about the making of olive oil but it all happens within a month after harvest.  If you have ever wondered about the difference between regular and extra virgin the latter is filtered more.    The final was a small Italian winery, Florio,  that made small patches of 18 types of wine from sparkling, white, red and sweet.    We stopped on the way home at the Italian festival, where the Italian wine fest queens were crowned, music and food trucks, great fun and good food.  We left at 10 and people where still coming! The next day our great uber driver took us out to Durigutti, voted top 10 winery in the world.  They only m...