Most of Sunday 7 October was spent travelling, as we left the wine growing region of Cafayate behind and drove to Cachi, which sits at the foot of the snow-covered Nevado de Cachi mountains. During the morning we passed through some stunning scenery and stopped to view several remarkable rock formations along the way.
At some of our stops we had a chance to do some bird photography and we got shots of Black-crested Finch and three species of parakeet, Burrowing, Blue-crowned and Mitred.
At lunchtime we found ourselves in the town of El Carrilo where we discovered there was a food fair underway, so we enjoyed some of the local specialities, including Empanadas Saltenas, Humitas and Tamales.
After lunch we drove west through the Cuesta del Obispo (Bishop’s Slope), which is a famous 20-km winding road that leads to Cardones National Park and then Cachi where we were spending the night. We made a number of birding stops and had sightings of more White-browed Chat-Tyrant, along with Rock Earthcreeper and a flock of Andean Condors flying over. A new mammal for us was the Guanaco.
As we got to the western side of the Cardones National Park the landscape changed to one of open desert with only a covering of low Larea divericata bushes. However, there were still good birds to be seen here and we had excellent views of an Elegant Crested -inamou running between the bushes.
With another excellent bird on our trip list we drove into Cachi to our accommodation for the night at the Hosteria Cachi, which was located on the southern edge of town.
