First stop - Humahuaca

After a long, bumpy, but thank God, largely uneventful overnight bus ride to Villazon, we arrived at 7am and walked the couple of blocks to the boarder with Argentina. Crossing was an easy affair and a short taxi ride took us to the bus station. Now forget everything that we have been saying about busses in South America, Argentine busses are in a class of their own! The three hour trip to Humahuaca was in a big comfortable bus with wide seats, air conditioning and even a toilet on board. The roads were paved and they gave out free ice cream on board. Ok, not the ice cream thing but after the Bolivian experience, riding a bus in Argentina was wonderful. I'll stop waxing lyrical now.

Humahuaca
...is a sleepy northern town which had much of the quaint adobe architecture and throwbacks to the Inca age that we are used to seing in South America but with the modern conveniences that we have come to long for (hot water, reliable electricity, shops that sell shampoo...). It was a great place to relax for a few days after leaving Bolivia and get our laundry done.

One of the best things we discovered was the start of Argentine food. No, I'm not talking about steaks, up here we are still in llama country, I'm talking about empanadas, humitas and tamales!! They were sold everywhere and thankfully at all hours. Since we are still adjusting to the Argentina timetable (breakfast at 7, lunch at 2 and dinner at 9pm), we got hungry at seemingly odd times when no restaurants were open so we have been subsisting on these yummy snacks. Dinners have been great too, the highlight was this LP recommended place called Casa Vieja - the live entertainment was a wonderful introduction to Argentine folk music.

After a few days rest, we took a tour into the famous Quebrada de Humahuaca stopping off at an odd church with paintaings of angels touting musket rifles, crossing the tropic of capricorn, walking thought the beautiful and colourful mountains surrounding Purmamarca and finally ending up in the quaint town of Tilcara We then caught a local bus to our next destination, the town of San Salvadore de Jujuy.