Hiking: Salta; Detours; Pelted by Rocks; Goats and Cafayate Canyon

I flew from Mendoza to Salta a city in the northwest of Argentina known for its Andean culture and as Argentina's second wine region. I did not realize it but the center of the Salta wine region is actually about 120 miles to the south in a small city called Cafayate. What is 120 miles between friends?

So I rented a car and headed back south. I have rented 3 cars so far in SA and each one has been French, one Peugot and 2 Renaults. Come to think of it I think the last time I was here I think all of the cars I rented were French, as was the car I rented in South Africa for a month. While they seem to have no part in the U.S. market, they appear to have a stranglehold on the low end overseas rental market (I always get the cheapest car available) in South America and Africa. Leave it to the French to discover a market know one has ever thought of.

There are in Argentina frequent inexplicable police stops and detours often due to washed out roads (surprisingly, I found Salta a surpringly green place with not infrequent rain storms where it rains quite hard and easily overpowers the Argentina road system). At one point, i got blocked enroute by the police, but Google maps provided no alternate route and there were of course no detour signs. The Argentine police apparently do not have a grasp of good solid European Spanish or English with a clear Spanish accent and so I was left to my own (and my French rented car) devices. I flailed around the back streets of whatever dusty and forsaken Argentine town I was in watching my phone battery dwindle. I finally pulled over in some neighborhood where seedy would have been a compliment and studied the phone map when suddenly I heard a "BLONK!" and felt my Renault shudder a little. I got out and looked about and saw that some friendly local had pelted me with a fair sized rock (still rolling away). Seeing no obvious adversary about, I jumped back in my trusty Renault and went back to the police road block and handed my iPhone to the no ingeles policeman who showed me the (20 mile) detour on Google maps and I sped off and luckily saw the handwritten 'route 23' sign which took me around the road closure.'

Enroute I did see a road sign with my name on it-

I had read that the trip from Salta to Cafayate which went thru the Quebrada de Cafayate (Cafayate Canyon) was one of the great road trips in Argentina, which considering Ruta 40 and Patagonia, etc, is actually saying something. And it definitely did not disappoint tho pictures do not really capture the stunning scenery or subtle different colors-

I have seen some great canyons in my travels, but i would say Quebrada is better than all but the Grand Canyon and even there the multi-hued colored rocks (tough to capture in photos without perfect lighting) are unmatched--