| From Humahuaca |
We had a couple of hours to wait in Purmamarca until we were due to join the rest of our excursion heading along the Humahuaca Gorge from Salta. This gave us enough time to grab some shots of the Seven Coloured Mountain in the morning sun. A spectacular sight, making it worth my efforts in scaling the ridge opposite the village to get the definitive shot. Anyway, judge for yourselves.
After Meeting up with our guide for the day, we progressed up the gorge to Ticara, where we had the chance to look round the ruins of the ancient pre-Inca settlement that was discovered there. We learned, amongst other fascinating facts, that llamas were a valuable resource for the inhabitants of this area, proving food, transport, leather, wool, and apparently even used as a hot water bottle substitute on cold winter nights!
The Humahuaca Gorge is one of the many World Heritage Sites in Argentina, in part because of the regions cultural history, but also because of the amazing geology. Basically what we were seeing was a cross section of what was once the seabed, turned on its side so as to expose its various strata going back over hundreds of millions of years. This gives rise to the wide variety of rock formations and colours that were on view as we drove along the valley.
Then on to the town of Humahuaca for lunch, which inevitably involved llama casserole (so that's llama three days in a row then), before heading back along the gorge to Salta, via San Sebastian, the capital of the Jujuy region.
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