One more place to visit before leaving Argentina - Purmamarca. We caught the local bus from Tilcara, it was a short ride just 30 minutes but the bus was full - standing room only. We immediately made for the view point that overlooks 'Seven colours hill'. The landscape is a visual feast for mountain lovers. From there we set of on the 'Paseo de los Colorados' walk. This a loop behind seven colours hill exploring yet more splendid scenery. You can actually drive...

From Salta our bus journey back tracked to Purmamarca. We tried to get accommodation here but everything was full, it was a long weekend in Argentina with Monday and Tuesday being National holidays. We had to pay over the odds but we booked an apartment at Tilcara just 30 minutes north of Purmamarca. We wanted to explore this area before leaving Argentina. We had seen some of the multi coloured mountains during our bus journey from Atacama to Salta but we wante...

We checked into a different hotel in Salta to last time - right on the corner of the plaza. We were hoping for a room overlooking the Plaza instead we got a dark room overlooking the air con units at the back of the hotel and we didn't even have air con! I asked for a different room and we got one, we overlooked the street leading onto the plaza but at least we had a view, and air con and a third bed to spread our kit on (we like some space). It rained actually r...

Both evenings at Cafayate it was forecast for rain & thunder, we had none but we left under a grey sky and it didn't look too promising. The Vineyards were soon behind us and it looked like it was just going to be a flat uninteresting drive up the valley - little did we know. Soon we were amidst red sandstone mountains and the area was aptly named 'Los Colarodas'. The clouds parted and the sun started to cook us. We parked up and headed off on foot to explo...

After breakfast we rumbled down the hill to Cachi,then rumbled some more on route 40 - dirt, sand, gravel, mud, anything but tarmac. Locals sped past us and left us in a cloud of dust sometimes wondering where the road went. We managed around 19 miles in our first hour - only 81 miles left of this. Superb scenery once again but this time without the drops. Amazingly this unpaved road through the mountains is actually a 'wine route'. We passed several Bodegas (Vin...