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Stage 2022/16 [SA017] | ||
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Cafayate - Las Conchas |
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| 24 km / 15 mi | |||
| 100 Hm (garmin edge 1000) max. Altitude: 1635m | |||
Cycling Argentina's Ruta 68 from Cafayate to Salta. |
 Since we did not encounter any unforeseen problems or delays while cycling Ruta 40, we are well on schedule. We can therefore allow ourselves to start today slowly and cacle a short half-day stage only. After breakfast we leave Cafayate on Ruta 68 towards Salta. In a sense, our journey home begins today. Here too the landscape is very impressive, the rocks to the left and right of the road have a different color every hundred meters. |
 As the schedule allows, we stop at one or two signposted sights to take a closer look at the landscape. The asphalt road somewhat disguises the fact that thelandscape around us is very dry, rugged and sandy again - similar to the last days, only with the luxury of an asphalt road beneath our bicycles. From Ruta 40 we know all too well how unpleasant sand can be. |
 In some places you can hike off the road through smaller gorges and admire the colorful mountains located in the second row. Here too the mountains are very colorful, the hues change from hill to hill. |
 There are huge sections of sand between the mountains. The sand is mostly yellow while most of the rocks are reddish. Which raises the question where the sand comes from. I would have expected the sand to be a similar color to the rock that sits next to it. |
 We reach our hotel around midday. Here, too, we enjoy the luxury of our own bathroom with a hot shower. We learned to be happy about little things. Like a swing, for example. |
 Our hotel is less than 1000m away from the main road, but it gives the impression that you are staying in the middle of nowhere. The large panoramic window in our room offers a gigantic view of the colorful mountains in the immediate vicinity. As impressive and beautiful as the last few days on Ruta 40 were, we are enjoying the comfort of our hotel today. Marion can't be gotten away from our window with the gigantic view while I take care of the essentials and organise a bottle of red wine. |
 Towards the evening it gets cold here too and we retreat to the oven and enjoy the red wine. We toast with a 2019 Finca La Punilla Malbec aged in oak barrels and enjoy the hotel's amenities, which primarily consist of the warmth of the oven. The Malbec comes from next door, the Peña Veyrat Durbex Winery. And by next door I mean exactly that: the winery is the direct neighbor in the house next door. Reason enough for us to pay our neighbor a visit. Dinner is scheduled for late evening, so there is enough time for us to walk over. |
 The cultivation area of the Peña Veyrat Durbex Winery is at an altitude of around 1700m and has a size of almost 9 hectares. The winery is therefore more of a wine manufacure and differs significantly from the large international wine companies that also exist in this region. Production is less automated and technological than elsewhere; here even the label is stuck to the bottle by hand.In addition to red wines from the Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec grape varieties, a very good white wine is made here from the Torrontés grape. Because of the high temperatures around midday, the grapes are harvested by hand only in the morning, and even the oak barrels are turned by hand only. If I understood correctly, purchasing these oak barrels is not that easy, as there are hardly any affordable, high-quality oak barrels available on the world market. In addition to the cellar for the barrels, there is a bottle warehouse 4m underground where up to 100,000 bottles of wine can be stored. |
 Despite the short stage of only 24km, it was getting late again today. The wine tasting ending the short sightseeing tour lasts until the late evening. When we leave the winery 2 red wines and 3 white wines later, it is dark and we stumble back to our hotel under a fabulous Cabernet Sauvignon red sky. The stumbling is quite literal, as the trellis for the vines quickly gets in the way and doesn't exactly make progress any easier. At the hotel we are served an excellent dinner and then the day is already over. |