Purmamarca

Another day, another dusty town with spectacular views. This time we found Anna's coloured mountains (confusion arose because whole region is called Humahuaca so people post blogs saying rocks are there meaning region but not town).

A short bus ride took us 25km south (10P) to a town that is little more than a square and a few streets. Behind the town lie that famous "seven coloured rocks" - we prefer rainbow rocks. They were absolutely beautiful with the colours changing depending on the time of day / angle of the sun.

We walked along the 3km track which goes behind the town into the mountains. We only met one car along the way (something about mad dogs and Englishmen out in the midday sun in the desert) so had a very peaceful trek.

By the time we got back everyone had disappeared off for siesta - great idea but do they not realise people want to eat at lunchtime?!. There was only one bus back so we rested our sun-scorched bodies in the shade with ice creams and books while we waited. Anna also had a tiny coffee, typical of Argentina apparently... it had floating bits of granules in it and she was less than impressed.

On the way back we drove past Maimara and saw the huge cemetery there which was full of stones, breeze-block type shrines and colourful flowers and ribbons.

Starving after our long trek, we had huge empanadas off the street grills (10P) which were delicious. Then after some more reading in the courtyard, we had some lovely ravioli at Bien Me Sabe where we were serenaded by a not so great sax player. We searched for more shooting stars on the way home but didn't see any.

Our Spanish is slowly (v slowly!) improving. The great thing about this region is that nobody speaks English and so they continue to talk to us at a million miles per hour despite our confused faces.Read more