The drive to Cachi from Salta was one of the most awe-inspiring yet difficult we have ever done. It was raining when we left Salta and once we left the main road to start our climb into the mountains to reach Cachi, 160km away, the road became narrower and rockier the further we drove. Tarmac soon gave way to gravel, which in turn became large rocks and mud. As we climbed we found ourselves ascending into cloud, making visibility poor and the driving conditions became, if such a thing was possible, even worse. River beds tumbled across our path and we had no option but to cross them with no knowledge of how deep they were or what obstacles lay under the surface. Waiting for another, hardier car with a foolhardier driver wasn't an option as the road was practically deserted. Outside the temperature dropped to less than two degrees, and visibility to just a few metres, as Brian struggled bravely on, navigating hairpin bends with sheer drops on one side and rock walls on the other, hoping that nothing was coming too fast in the other direction. Meanwhile I was feeling so ill all I could do was cling limply onto the door furniture and mutter the odd feeble 'look out!' whenever a stone hit the bottom of the car, a service which Brian later noted was an admirable substitution for my normally excellent navigation skills, and almost as helpful.

And then we reached the mountain plateau; the sun came out and the clouds lifted, the temperature rose and we discovered we were in a National Park of incredible beauty and greenness, ringed by the snow-capped peaks of the Andes. Ahead we spotted what we took to be a herd of wild llama, but later found out they are actually a close relative of the llama family and called vicunas. They kindly hung around long enough for Brian to leap out and photograph them, before ambling off to nibble on some more straggly green stuff. (The vicunas that is, not Brian).

Arriving in Cachi we headed off to the swankiest hotel in town, www.lamerceddelalto.com which I had earmarked as having all the perfect ingredients for my convalescence. On hearing the price per night Brian staggered slightly, held his hand to his forehead and almost joined me in feeling rather ill and a little bit faint, but luckily he was won over by the beautiful building, the tranquil setting, the stunning views and my pathetic feverish pleadings to be allowed to lie down and go to sleep for about 18 hours. Which is what I did and, after a restorative bath, two ibuprofen and a very long sleep; I did indeed wake up the next morning feeling a whole lot better. Brian meanwhile, having recovered from his Dukes of Hazard drive through the hordes of wildebeest running majestically along the plain, spent the afternoon ambling around Cachi investigating his options for the evening. Having established that bacchanalian nightlife possibilities were thin on the ground he returned to the hotel, only to be plunged into a deeper depression with the discovery that there were no televisions to be found anywhere in the hotel or its' grounds. Apparently a lack of wall to wall football viewing is far from his definition of a luxury hotel. Luckily I was too fast asleep to be aware of his disgruntlement and by the morning he had been sufficiently soothed and lulled by his surroundings, and we spent a pleasant morning wandering around the town's tiny museum and admiring the obligatory church in the main square.

For lunch I tried one of the local specialities, humita; which is a mixture of sweet corn and cheese wrapped and cooked in the fibrous outer leaf of the sweet corn. It's tasty and quite filling but it's best not to attempt to eat the outer leaf of course, which I almost did mistaking it for yet another example of the indigenous cuisine.

Talking of leaves, the local drug trade hereabouts consists of coca leaves which, when chewed with bicarbonate of soda, apparently has a mildly hallucinogenic effect. Strangely, rather than being sold by shifty looking hat-wearing men on street corners smoking thin roll-ups and talking out of the corner of their mouths, most of the dealers appear to be the same wrinkled old women who sell llama ponchos and knitted hats; who knows which is their most lucrative business, but it's most disconcerting to be offered drugs whilst innocently contemplating the purchase of yet another desirable stripey object.