After Mendoza we spent a night in Tucuman and then headed out with our guide Roxanna towards Cafayate. We stopped in the yungas, subtropical rainforest, to see the lush vegetation with misty clouds around the tree tops. As we drove away from there the landscape changed all of a sudden into desert mountains with clear blues skies and cacti everywhere. It was really amazing.

We saw the Menhires, ancient stones in Tafi del Valle and stopped for a coffee at a cafe overlooking the valley and the huge lake created by the dam there. After that we saw more amazing landscape to the Quilmes ruins made by a pre inca civilisation. We climbed to the top for more amazing views and then headed into Cafayate. We watched the sunset from our hostel Ruta 40, it was such an amazing day.

From there we headed to Salta, where we spent a day seeing the churches, Sean had his last Yerbe Mate and we went up the cable car for a view of Salta. We only had enough pesos to go up on the cable car but it was a long cold walk down so Sean managed to persuade the guy to let us into a cable car by giving him his thermos flask, a happy end to the Argentina Mate drinking!

From Salta we travelled up to Pumamarca where the landscape got even more colourful. We went through Tilcara and saw more ruins there and then up to Humahuaca to see the town centre with it`s huge independence monument. All of the towns had dusty streets running through them with stalls selling local woven goods and lots of pottery. We couldn`t resist getting a poncho and a stupid hat!

We headed back to Tilcara to Malka hostel which is really lovely. We have a balcony and a big veranda where we drank our Mendoza wine and watched the sunset, there may have been some dancing too but luckily no one else was around! We had an amazing steak for dinner as we got ready to say goodbye to Argentina and head into Bolivia...Love Vicky x