Quebrada de Humahuaca

After Salta we spent a day driving north through the picturesque Quebrada de Humahuaca on our way to the Bolivian border. We stopped at small towns such as Purmamarca (famous for its seven-coloured mountain) and Humahuaca along the way before settling for the night in gorgeous Tilcara (just a couple of hours south of the Bolivian border).

The landscape in the quebrada is quite varied (barren hillsides, colourful mountains, llamas, cacti) and the towns are all very small and cute with dirt roads and adobe houses.

This trip was also memorable for the incredibly rude American couple who were on the tour with us...too much to tell here but ask for the story in person!

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Salta (Argentina)

After Cafayate, we spent 3 days in Salta, in northern Argentina. We found accomodation in a big old colonial house (with internal courtyards and 70´s style furnishings) which was run by an 87 year old Spanish lady who handwrote every detail in her big book (including age, marital status, occupation, date we entered Argentina, etc) and had no computer system whatsoever!

Salta was a nice city to explore, with a number of good museums. The most fascinating we visited was the archaeological museum which documented the discovery of 3 inca children (aged 6, 7 and 15) who were found in 1999 on a nearby mountain in the Andes. The children were sacrifices and had been there for around 500 years but were perfectly preserved due to the climate at the high altitude (6700m). Only one of the children was on display, but it was amazing to see how well preserved her hair, teeth, hands etc were as well as her clothing and sacrificial objects.

We also enjoyed (once again!) sampling the region´s famously good empanadas!

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Quebrada de Cafayate

While in Cafayete we spent an afternoon visiting the quebrada (ravine/gorge) just north of the town. The landscape of the quebrada is spectacular, full of rock formations eroded into distinctive shapes (some with nicknames like "the frog") and in vibrant red and brown colours.

We´ll let the photos speak for themselves...

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Cafayate (Argentina)

We took an overnight bus here from Mendoza (about 20hrs north) - the landscape changed dramatically as we neared Cafayate and passed through valleys surrounded by hills covered in lots of cacti. We arrived on the Friday night of a long weeked and (apparently) with a famous musician playing in town that evening so almost found ourselves sleeping in the plaza with all of the accomodation around town seemingly fully booked! We eventually found a room for the night at a hospedaje (basically a family home with a spare room) which we shared with a girl from the US who was also having difficulty finding accomodation.

We enjoyed a couple of days here checking out the local handicrafts around this very relaxed town, seeing the quebrada (see separate post), and visiting the local wineries and sampling their famous torrontes variety. We also tried wine-flavoured icecream for the first time here, and it was pretty good! (we both liked the malbec flavour better than the torrontes).

On our last night here we experienced Argentinian hospitality as a couple from BA invited us for a BBQ dinner (Argentinian style) that they cooked at their hostel. It was a fun evening learning more about the Argentinian culture while eating plenty of good meat!

This was definitely a favourite place of ours in Argentina!

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Mendoza (Argentina)

After Iguazu we had a marathon 32hr bus trip down to Mendoza (we ended up deciding to break up the journey by staying in Rosario for a night). Mendoza is in the west of Argentina, close to the border with Chile, and is a well known wine region - producing 70% of Argentina´s wine, and specialising in the Malbec variety. It also has great views of the Andes.

We stayed a day longer here as we were both sick, but after spending a couple of days relaxing around the many plazas and cafes in town, we recovered in time to hire bikes on our last day and cycle around some of the wineries in Maipu (about 30mins south of Mendoza) and visit the wine museum and the awesome chocolate and liquers factory - amazing! Our favourite winery was Familia di Tomasso, which is over 140 years old and serves up fantastic homemade meals, including the most amazing tiramisu!

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