"A town of Bodegas" Top 5 Page for this destination Cafayate by barryg23

Cafayate Travel Guide: 47 reviews and 160 photos

Church in Cafayate

I'd never heard of Cafayate before coming to Argentina but as we travelled through the country we bumped into many travellers who recommended a visit to the town. As often happens while travelling, it's the places you don't know about initially but discover along the way that can turn out to be the most memorable.

That was certainly the case with Cafayate, where four fantastic days were spent hiking in the countryside, visiting family owned vineyards, enjoying excellent wines, and in general just relaxing and enjoying life.

Cafayate is the second most important wine growing area in Argentina after Mendoza, but the vineyards and bodegas in Cafayate are far more traditional, welcoming and interesting than the larger ventures in Mendoza. Cafayate is well known for its excellent Torrontes wine. I'm not normally a white wine fan but after tasting a torrontes in Cafayate, I almost gave up red wine for the duration of our stay!

The town is at altitude of 1683 metres and enjoys an excellent climate with plenty of sunshine. The population is about 10,000 but despite its popularity with tourists it still retains a small town feel and charm.

There is good hiking very close to the town, especially around the Rio Colarado a few kilometres to the west, while further afield the the rock formations on the road from Salta are a very popular attraction.

Pros and Cons

Pros:Wine, hiking & waterfalls
Cons:Difficult to find information about trekking and climbing
In a nutshell:An essential stop in a beautiful part of Argentina

Last visit to Cafayate: Oct 2007
Intro Updated Feb 23, 2009
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Reviews (12)

Scenery on the road to Tafi del Valle - Cafayate

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Comments (5)

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Jim_Eliason Jan 17, 2010 at 1:38 PM

Great page Barry!
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globetrott Jan 31, 2009 at 11:09 PM

an interesting place with great scenery, thanks for sharing ! Wine-icecream sounds great to me !
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toonsarah Jan 3, 2009 at 11:58 AM

A heady cocktail of wine and beautiful scenery. And I too would love to try that ice cream!
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kyoub May 22, 2008 at 3:58 PM

Very helpful tips. I would like to try the wine ice cream.
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Dabs Nov 9, 2007 at 11:34 AM

Wine ice cream? That sounds a little too weird even for me!