Day 12, Villa Union to Cafayate, Argentina

We have been on the road for 12 days now, however it seems longer, the rally is turning into a blur of hotels and lunch halts, things are flying by so quickly it's difficult to take it all in. It also appears we are on a gastro tour, the food has been so good and plentiful. Usually on a rally like this when things are non stop action all day long you tend to lose weight but not this time, we are eating for England!
The local people have been very friendly towards us, every town and village we go through people are waving and cheering, the cars respond with a wide variety of air horns and klaxon noises.
This morning we had a mountain pass to tackle which was quite challenging, a very steep climb up a narrow and dusty red track and then down the other side, with very steep drops down to a river 200 metres below, often with no barriers or walls. Then we had a couple of test stages, one of the Mustangs fell off the road on the Fangio section and rolled down a bank landing on it's roof, thankfully the crew were both OK with minor cuts and bruises, amazingly the driver didn't have his seat belts on, not recommended on a competitive stage. The car, we are told, should be able to carry on although I expect it will look a bit battle weary.
The lunch halt was quite good fun, the usual slap up meal, today with spare ribs the size of T bone steaks. The restaurant, and just about every other business in town from what we could gather, was owned by Paco-no surname, just Paco. He kindly organized a troop of Gauchos on horseback to ride around and entertain us.
The notable change in scenery today was the abundance of cactii which have suddenly appeared, just a terrain change I guess, we keep expecting to bump into John Wayne round every corner. We have been on and off route 40 again most of the day, we have followed it for nearly 2500 kms now, but keep diverting off to see various attractions or to go up some dusty track to do silly things. We also saw a cloud this afternoon!
Once again we have landed sunny side up in the hotel stakes, we are staying at the Patios de Cafayate Hotel and Spa, a wonderful Parador style place set in a winery, as I write this Peter and I are in the room, which is the size of a squash court, there are two king size beds, chairs tables and a huge flat screen TV. Tough being a rally driver...