After checking into our hotel in Purmamarca we headed up over the pass towards Chile to find the Salinas Grandes, the salt flats.The road took us up into the clouds on our windy way, then dropped us out onto the desolate alta plano where shepherds gather twigs for a fire to keep warm at night.We were over 4,000 meters high--13,681 feet in altitude.These salt flats are about 40 km long and 26 km wide, but this is just one of many areas thick with salt. The whole n...

The HILLS! They're red, purple, green, yellow, grey, brown, pink--in layer after layer of impossibly colored ridges bathed in mist and spanked by the sun. Of course, the ones that caught my eye are the bright red ones--you'll have to come here yourself to see the purples and yellows.We drove into Purmamarca in the north western corner of Argentina and thought we'd driven into a box of crayons. But with low clouds and rain threatening, I knew we weren&...