Mountains Through a Kaleidoscope

Exploring the northwest of Argentina feels a lot different to the rest of the country. It has a much larger indigenous population, and the sounds, tastes and buildings could belong to any of the other nearby countries - the north of Chile, or the south of Perú or Bolivia. The main cities are Salta and San Salvador de Jujuy (or just Jujuy), but there is a string of small towns following the long Quebrada de Humahuaca ravine north towards the Chilean and Bolivian borders.

The Quebrada de Humahuaca, from Tilcara

We arrived in Salta from Corrientes with the intention of hiring a car to explore the region before heading south. Originally, our plan was to drive all the way 1000+km south to Mendoza, but the fee for leaving the car there made it prohibitively expensive. Also, I didn't fancy driving the whole way - Jo wasn't able to take the wheel as her licence was stolen in Perú. Instead, we decided to just take the car around the surrounding area and leave it in Cafayate, just 200km away.

The road up to the Hornical

Salta had the feel of a lot of the other Andean cities that we've liked along the way, like Arequipa in Perú or Sucre in Bolivia. It even has a cable car to the top of the nearby hill, which seems to be a trend in many South American cities (La Paz, Quito, Medellín, Rio de Janeiro, etc). Our highlight, though, was the High Mountain Archaeological Museum (or MAAM - the Spanish acronym). It contains the remains of two children sacrificed by the Inca to their mountain gods. They were buried at the top of the region's highest mountain, at 6739m, and their bodies and the intricate grave goods have been perfectly preserved in the freezing temperatures.

Salta's take on the ubiquitous cable car

We left Salta in our hire car, driving north along the Quebrada de Humahuaca on the RN9. We soon found that, although the main road was in good condition, almost anything off the side of it was less so. Trying to get to the Lagunas de Yala, we had to turn round along one dirt road as it had been completely covered by a landslide. We did make it there a different way, making slow progress along another dirt road as we tried to protect our car from any flying pebbles. It was worth it for the great views along the valley from the winding mountain roads, even if the lagunas weren't that spectacular.

Not this way, then

The real reason for visiting this area is to see the celebrated coloured mountains. The most famous of these is the Hill of the Seven Colours rising above the small town of Purmamarca. The hill certainly lives up to its name! As this is probably the most accessible of the coloured mountains, it is also the most visited. Many of the towns in this area have been overrun by stalls of llama wool knitted into every form imaginable. This didn't prevent us from enjoying the spectacular hill and the drive past the town (and more coloured valley walls) up to the Argentinian salt flats, the Salinas Grandes.

Only Seven colours?

The salt flats, although not as big or as well known as those at Uyuni in Bolivia, are still an impressive sight. They stretch miles into the distance, with no point of reference until the mountains on the horizon. This was where we first discovered that cars don't run so well at 4000m above sea level, needing a lot more effort to get up the hills! 

Walking across the Salina Grande

The next time we went this high was to yet another coloured mountain, called the Hornocal, following a tip from an English couple to whom we got chatting in a restaurant in Tilcara. After a long hour drive along another gravel track outside of the town of Humahuaca, the view suddenly appeared before us of one of the most jaw-dropping sights of our trip so far. The entire opposite side of the valley was like a giant kaleidoscope. The Hornocal is also called the Hill of the Fourteen Colours, rather trumping the Seven in Purmamarca! It was relatively quiet and doesn't appear in so many guidebooks as the other hill, maybe because of the more difficult location.

The Hornocal

We had based ourselves in the small town of Tilcara, which is perfectly positioned to drive to many of the sights in the region. It is also home to a Pucará - a pre-Inca fort - looking over the Quebrada. Unfortunately, it was misguidedly reconstructed in the 1950s and isn't viewed as particularly authentic. However, because of its strategic position, it does have fantastic views over the entire valley. The whole Quebrada de Humahuaca has been listed by UNESCO, not so much for its natural beauty, but because of its archaeological sites. It has been in continuous use for over 10,000 years as an important route down from the Andean highlands to the lowlands of the south of the continent.

The reconstructed Pucará de Tilcara

After finishing driving around the dry, desert-like Quebrada, we are now moving across to the more humid, jungle-like Calilegua National Park. We will then be heading south towards the wine growing regions of Cafayate and Mendoza.

A closer view of the Hornical

The Nazca Lines - One Of The World's Great Unsolved Mysteries

We arrived in the desert city of Nazca with one intention - to see the famous Nazca Lines. These are a complex series of ancient lines, geometric shapes and stylised motifs, all drawn in the desert and encompassing a huge area. The figures include several designs based on animals and plants, including for example a monkey, a hummingbird and a spider. They are on such a large scale that they can only really be appreciated from the air  - most of the animals are 50-100m long, while the lines are often several km long and 1-3m wide.

The hummingbird figure

The Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture and its predecessor, the Paracas culture, between around 500 BC and 500 AD. It would have been a huge undertaking. All the figures and lines were made by clearing away the top layer of dark pebbles and revealing the whiter ground underneath. The lines are so straight that they must have been painstakingly planned and measured - some even theorise that the Nazca must have had hot air balloons to be able to create such precise designs that only become clear from the air. Despite being so old, the geoglyphs have remained in good condition due to the extreme aridity of the desert environment.

Our tiny plane for the Nazca Lines flight

Kev had always wanted to take the flight over the lines, but I was less sure and was very nearly put off by the horror stories of poor safety, horrific air sickness and general very bad organisation! At the last minute I decided to go for it, and was very glad I did. The flight was simply incredible: one of the top experiences of the trip so far. We were in a 6 seater plane with another couple plus pilot and co-pilot. The pilot flew round 12 of the most famous figures, banking first left and then right so that people on both sides of the plane could see. We had amazingly clear views of every figure and could better understand their layout and the sheer immensity of the lines. And no air sickness!

A pair of hands - also sometimes known as the frog

While various theories have been propounded, the purpose of the lines remains unknown. Most experts agree that they probably had some religious significance, perhaps intended as symbols to be seen by the gods above: archaeological evidence shows that ceremonies and festivals may have taken place along them. Other theories link the lines to astronomy and some suggest that they were used as some sort of huge celestial calendar. They could also have been paths leading to water sources - vital when living in such a dry environment. One of the world's enduring mysteries.

In the Cantalloc aqueducts

While in Nazca we explored some ruins from the Nazca civilisation. Firstly the Cantalloc aqueducts, a sophisticated system of subterranean water channels that the Nazca designed for irrigating their crops. They look like interconnected terraces, spiralling down to wells at the bottom, and are still used today. Next the slightly gruesome Chauchilla Cemetery, a burial site from the later Nazca period, still containing mummified human remains in open graves. Interestingly, many of the mummies had headdresses or very long hair styled like dreadlocks. We also visited Cahuachi, the remains of an important ceremonial centre and pilgrimage destination for the Nazca. The ruins here were in excellent condition despite being built of mud bricks, again thanks to the extreme conditions here.

Nazca mummies in the Chauchilla Cemetery 

From Nazca we moved on to the small coastal town of Paracas. We had a long walk around the desert peninsula, admiring the beautiful marine scenery and seeing more flamingoes than anywhere else we've been. The next day we took a boat trip out to the nearby Islas Ballestas, 'the poor man's Galapagos', as many descriptions put it. The wildlife here was stunning - the sky became thick with birds as we approached, and the islands themselves are simply covered in colonies of cormorants, Peruvian boobies and Inca terns, among others. They're also home to Humboldt penguins, sea lions and pelicans and we saw all of these at close proximity. Not the Galapagos, but a pretty good alternative for now!

Playa Roja (Red Beach) - part of the Paracas peninsula 

While in Paracas we happened to be discussing what would happen if a tsunami hit .. and lo and behold the next day after the earthquake in Chile there were tsunami warnings throughout coastal Peru. Fortunately we'd moved on by then 60 km inland to the desert town of Ica, where we enjoyed some wine tasting. Yes, Peru's major wine region is in the desert! There's no comparison with Chilean wine, but the 2012 Petit Verdot was surprisingly good actually. We also visited Ica's excellent museum, and will leave here tonight heading for Ayacucho, up in the central highlands.

So many birds! Peruvian boobies at the Islas Ballestas

Arequipa and Trekking the Colca Canyon

We've spent the last few days sightseeing in the old colonial city of Arequipa before getting out of the city for some trekking in the nearby (only 6 bus hours away!) Colca Canyon.

The cathedral in the main square in Arequipa

Arequipa - more Jesuit churches

Arequipa itself has a very pretty centre, mostly constructed from sillar - a white stone taken from the three volcanoes overlooking the city. There are ornate churches, a huge cathedral and a frozen mummy of a 12 - 14 year old girl called Juanita. It felt a lot like Sucre, in Bolivia, to us. Apart from Juanita.

Juanita was an Incan sacrifice to one of their mountain gods. It would have been a great honour to her to accompany the priests to the freezing summit to offer herself to appease the gods that were causing the nearby volcano to erupt. Preserved in nearly perfect condition she was found in 1996, ironically due to another nearby volcano erupting and melting her icy tomb. She has been on display ever since, and it's a very moving experience to come face to face with her in the museum.





One of our favourite things was spending an afternoon wandering around the picture-perfect Santa Catalina Convent. The convent occupies a whole block in the city and has its own interior streets and cloisters - a quiet island cut off from the busy streets outside. It was constructed in 1579, and there is still a section where a few nuns live in seclusion today, as in days gone by.

The quiet streets of the Santa Catalina convent

Running through Arequipa is the Chili River, which is well known for its whitewater. We spent half a day on the river - Jo for her first time in a raft and me kayaking. We both really enjoyed it - the rapids were continuous class III with little respite, with a class IV in the middle. It was great for me to be back in a kayak on whitewater again, for the first time on this trip, and Jo found the raft to be a good level of fun and fright.

Running the Chili River

From Arequipa we made our way to the Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is another few hours away by bus, and is very difficult to explore properly without paying a lot of money for a tour and a guide. The Colca Canyon is a lot more visited by people doing day trips from Arequipa to a great viewpoint for seeing condors. We skipped this, and continued further along the road to get closer to the canyon.

The Oasis of Sangalle at the bottom of the Colca Canyon

We spent three days trekking. The first was spent gradually descending down the steep wall to Llahuar where we were rewarded with (almost) hot springs to soak our aching muscles. There, we met a great group of people to continue for a full day along (with a lot of up and down) the Colca River at the base of the canyon to San Juan de Chuccho. From our basic lodgings there we could see the daunting ascent for the following day - we'd be climbing over 1000m back up to the trek's starting point. We hadn't anticipated that the bit we could see would be the easiest part of the climb - it turned out that part only took an hour. The next two hours were even steeper and we were exhausted by the time we reached the top.

Our smiling group, before the exhausting ascent

We did make the top in time to catch the bus back to Arequipa. Perhaps 6 hours in a bus isn't the best thing for stiff legs after such a climb, but we're moving on again and will take a night bus tonight to the heart of the Inca empire - Cusco.

Ghost Mining Towns, Mummies and Llamas at 4500m

When Kev last posted we were still in touristy San Pedro de Atacama, trying to deal with extremes of altitude, temperature and aridity. It was thus a relief to arrive in Iquique on the west coast, which was at sea level and relatively warm. There's not much that can be said for the city - it's quite a gritty place, rough around the edges and swathed in mist for 90% of the time. Strangely enough however, it did boast some excellent sushi restaurants and, best of all, it lacked tourists other than than ourselves and Cindy and Julien, the Swiss couple with whom we're travelling at the moment.

Old mining machinery in Santa Laura

The four of us hired a car for the day to visit the nearby mining ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura. The two towns and their surrounding area were one of the world's most important producers of nitrate from the 1880s until 1960 and were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2005. We enjoyed wandering around the abandoned buildings, both residential and industrial, and imagining the lives of the miners living there. The conditions must have been pretty tough - the towns are in the middle of the desert, in unpleasantly dry and hot conditions. We read that the temperature in the mines could get up to 50ºC. At least Humberstone had a swimming pool they could cool off in!

Walking up towards the Atacama Giant 

We also took the opportunity of having our own transport to go to see El Gigante de Atacama, a huge geoglyph on the side of a  hill in the desert. It is the largest anthropomorphic  geoglyph in the world, at 86m tall, and estimated to date to around AD 900.  It was believed to have magical powers, seen as a shaman or a deity by local people of the time.

Chinchorro mummy, in Museo de Sitio Colón 10, Arica

We moved on from Iquique to Arica, another coastal city that was a lot more pleasant than Iquique. A number of mummies have been found in this area from the South American Chinchorro culture and are on display in local museums. They are the oldest examples of mummification in the world, dating back to as far as 5000 - 7000 BC (2000 years before Egyptian mummies). The main museum in the town showcased some remains as they were found - we walked across a glass floor and could look down at the mummies beneath. Some had red or black clay masks, some had wigs and others were decorated with feathers. Quite a weird experience!

We took a bus from Arica up to Putre, a slightly giddying journey up a winding road to an altitude of 3500m. Our main aim of coming here was to visit Parque Nacional Lauca, which is even higher at an average of 4500m. Quite few tourists come to Lauca on a day trip from Arica  - a little stupid, we thought, as an increase of altitude of 4500m in a few hours is a recipe for disaster. We arrived in Putre in the morning and spent a day acclimatising and admiring the incredible scenery. It's a little like San Pedro, but better, with mountains all around.

The town square and church in Putre

The second day in Putre we organised a tour to Lauca. Our driver was a friendly Venezuelan guy, so as well as enjoying the incredible scenery and wildlife of the park, we gained an interesting insight into life and politics in Venezuela at the moment. Lauca national park was one of the most stunning places we have visited so far, with picture perfect volcanoes and lakes. There were lots of animals - we saw endless llamas and alpacas (I still can't tell the difference!) and also herds of their shy wild relative, the vicuña. Plus, among others, the cute rabbit-like viscacha, giant tagua (giant coots) and flamingoes.

In front of Volcán Parinacota

At Lake Chungara (4500m, new height record!)

Feeding a llama

You could really feel the altitude up here and we were glad we had had a night in Putre to adjust a little. At one point we had to walk up a hill, not a particularly steep one, and within seconds I was gasping for breath. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest and I had to stop and then walk at a really slow pace in order not to feel like I was dying! For once we were glad that we were driven around for most of the day and only minimal walking was involved.

Vicuñas in Parque Nacional Lauca

We travelled back down to Arica the next day and this evening will be taking a nightbus back to San Pedro, from where we'll head into Bolivia via the famous salt flats.