After we had succesfully crossed the border we drove for approximately five hours before reaching Salta. We arrived unexpectedly late and we were forced to camp outside of the city as a consequence. As soon as we arrived Dan began sniffing out the meat and within an hour of being in Salta we were ordering dinner in one of Salta's best known steakhouses. I'll spare you the details but three bottles of wine and three kilos of beef later we were carwling into our tent, utterly exhausted. We spent the next day exploring the city centre which is just as modern as London and a welcome change to the 'make shift' town centres of Peru and Bolivia. We ate lunch in the Plaza de Armas and fell asleep on a bench in the gentle sun. Nobody in the plaza was homeless but everyone was a stray dog away from looking like it. It's just simply impossible to function in that heat. We took a taxi back to the campsite in the evening for a night of wine and cheese tasting. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire night and tried about twenty different wines and cheese and were told about each one indivdually, learning about the process of making, bottling and exporting the wine. We enjoyed a steak, cooked to our liking, drank the left over wine and didn't make it to bed until 3am. The following morning we joined another couple of the guys in taking the cable car over the city. We reached the highest point, which had been converted into a beautiful little Eden. There wasn't much to do in the 'parque' so don't judge me for admitting we savoured a couple of bottles of chilled sparkling wine with our picnic by a waterfall. Well, why not? We're in Argentina and they're all doing it. It would be like going to Egypt and not seeing the pyramids! That night, along with the next, we had a barbeque. By this point I'd had enough of steak and ribs so I thought I'd give the blood sausage a go. Blood sausage is effectively made of kidney, intestines and other organs that the Argentinians don't care to waste. It was interesting! Dan, without surprise, loved it. We left Salta early in the morning and drove only six hours to Cafayate. I'm now adept at passing the time on long journeys while Dan is asleep and I have a variety of games to keep me entertained. My favourite, especially along popular backpacker routes, is 'spot the s***ter.' I doubt I need to explain! As soon as we arrived In the afternoon, in an effort not to waste any time, we set out for the plaza straight away. Cafayate is the second most popular wine region in Argentina so we spent the afternoon visiting the local wineries. No charge, all the wine you can taste! It was particularly interesting to learn about the different types of barrells used in the oaking process. Equally interesting, we were told that British citizens cannot send wine home to the UK because of the import restrictions in place there. Now, I know that Gordon Brown has a lot on his plate at the moment but for this reason alone, labour no longer gets my vote! A good day turned into a great one when I found somewhere that would make me a gin and tonic! The heat in Argentina is almost unbearable and shade is hard to find. On our last day in Cafayate we decided to hire a bicycle so that we could be sure to fit in the rest of the wineries and vineyards. I'll add here, and hope you remember, that I wanted to hire a scooter instead but Daniel convinced me that cycling was the way forward in Argentina. The morning was very enjoyable, cycling leisurely through vineyard after vineyard stopping often to sample the harvest. The afternoon, however, presented us with a few problems: 1) it was atleast 35'C, 2) we had limited sunscreen, 3) our map was not to scale at all, 4) the roads had disappeared and we were left with dirt tracks and 5) I didn't want to bloody cycle anyway! We did, despite all of this, decide to cycle to Las Nubes, a less touristy vineyard and winery which on the map appeared to be a ten minute bike ride past the campsite. As it turned out it was 6 kilometres uphill, on a sand road, in blistering heat. Not one for "I told you so's" I cycled most of the track in silence but made my feelings quite clear by throwing my bike as far as I could every time we stopped. It was hard, so hard. We did finally get to the right place and we were greeted with a platter of cheese and ham and a chilled bottle of Rose. Once there, though, it all became completely worth it. Las Nubes is a huge vineyard and winery situated in the side of the mountains looking over the city of Cafayte. The gardens there are full of native flowers and plants and the winery is a series of small wooden buildings covered in ivy and roses. It really was the most tranquil place I've ever encountered, especially as we were the only people there. We bought a bottle of the famous red 'malbec' and prepared ourselves for the ride back. It took us two hours to reach Las Nubes and only 15 minutes to get back, downhill, to the plaza. That night, we headed back to camp for yet another barbeque. In the morning we left early to complete a twelve hour drive to Cordoba. The drive was extremely uncomfortable in the heat and we hit a lot of traffic. We did, however, travel some of the infamous 'Ruta 40,' the same route Che Guevara took on his well known motorcycle tour. Cordoba came into view around 8pm and as soon as we had eaten we crawled into bed, the sound of the other four people in the dorm snoring now as soothing as a mother's lullaby.

Thought of the Day: Your culinary expectations will inevitably change when you are travelling. That said, nobody wants to be able to milk their own steak!