Monday, Sept. 27, 2010 Cachi

We were picked up at 7:30am for our excursion to Cachi, a small village in the mountains. Our group was just our selves, the guide and one other woman, Mariella (from Buenos Aires). Our guide spoke reasonably good English so he said everything in spanish and english so we could all understand. Having said that Mariella spoke a little english and I a little spanish so we were still able to have some conversation. It was a very enjoyable day. We made various stops along the way to take pictures of the increadibly beautiful scenery/mountains. The guide explained the history of everything along the way. One of the main stops was in Parque Nacional Los Cardones (Cacti national park). It was increadible. We were around 3000 meters up in the mountains and there were thousands of giant cacti. There were fields that seemed to just keep going on that were peppered with these huge cacti that only grow .25 cm per year. I was really cool to see. We arrived to Cachi at noon and had lunch at a local restaurant that served all local specialties. Our guide told us what we should order. It was delicious. We had a little quinoa ball that was stuffed with cheese, pototoes, and peppers. Then we had a huge green pepper stuffed with rice, tomatoes, and dried beef. And for dessert we had anchi, corn meal with large raisons, honey, and lemon juice. After lunch were checked into our hotel. Zach had a nap and then we went again searching for an 'early' dinner. We found this little cafe that was open. We had wine, empanadas, and pizza for dinner. There was a guy, Arnold, from Amsterdam, that we chit chatted with the whole time. We were actually successful in getting Zach to bed by 9pm! and he slept until 8am!