The trail of the Tren de los Nubes to the Salinas Grandes

The view from the train - well, the road next to the tracks

From Humahuaca I returned to Salta to catch the bus to San Pedro in Chile, but unfortunately the bus only leaves on Thursdays so I had a day or two in Salta. From Salta there is a famous tourist train - Tren de los Nubes which I wanted to experience but sadly the train was not operating but there was a tour that followed the tracks and went further to the Salinas Grandes Argentinian salt flats.

The train was a feat of engineering for its time - needing to haul goods through the Andes.

Rail bridge

The track consists of many rail bridges and a huge number of shallow switchbacks to enable the train to haul more goods due to the lower gradient if the tracks.

Multiple low gradient switchbacks

The train winds its way through the mountains through spectacular scenery.

Coloured hills

Cactus 

More coloured hills 

The road alongside the tracks

More cactus

And local wildlife:

Llamas

Vicuñas

Until it reaches the copper mining town of San Antonio de los Cobres.

San Antonio de los Cobres

From here the tour headed to Las Salinas Grandes - the Argentinian salt flats.

The salt flats are still used to mine salt - as can be seen by the huge pile of salt that greets you at the entrance.

The salt flats

And the salt pools:

salt pools

more pools

salt crystals in the pools

And because the salt pan is so flat

Looking towards the horizon

You can have some fun with perspective:

Yes, I am *that* flexible

From the salt flats the bus climbed further into the mountains 

Very high

Before heading down towards Purmamarca and then returning to Salta.

The road down the mountain 

The multicoloured hills of Humahuaca

Humahuaca Independence Monument

Humahuaca a small town around an hour further North of Tilcara. The town is dominated by the giant "Independence Monument" that towers above the little town square.

Looking down from the monument

The town square 

From the monument there are sweeping views of the town and the coloured mountains behind the town.

Humahuaca from the top of the monument

Also within the town is a 16th Century church (one if the oldest in Argentina) and the newer town hall which boasts an animatronic Saint who comes out the bless onlookers at midday ( yeah, it's a bit weird).

Humahuaca Church

The saint blessing the crowd from the town hall clocktower

The town itself is quite small and dusty as most of the roads are unpaved - when the wind blows, dust storms can be quite bad.

Dust storm in Humahuaca

However, outside the town are many beautiful treks into the multicoloured mountains that Humahuaca is famous for.

Just over the river is the short trail to the Virgin Medalla Milagrosa shrine.

The shrine

From the top of the shrine you can see views across the town and views back to the coloured mountains.

Humahuaca from the top of the shrine

Some of the coloured mountains

Just outside of town is the formation that the area is really famous for - The painter's pallette, also known as the Hornocal.

The Hornocal is around 23km from Humahuaca and is easily reachable by hiring a taxi from the bus station at a cost of around $ARS150 per person ($AUD15). The road winds high (4300m) into the mountains - so expect to feel the effects of altitude.

Looking back towards Humahuaca

From the top of the road you are able to see the beauty of the Hornocal.

The Painter's Pallette

Which is really quite spectacular.

The Hornocal from the lookout

For intrepid hikers there is a 5 day trail through the Hornocal but unfortunately, as it was getting towards winter, it wasn't recommend to do the trail due to cold weather conditions.

So, instead I opted to take a bus to the tiny village of Uquía to hike up into the "Las Senoritas" formation.

The trail leads from beside the Uquía church following the road from the town.

Uquía church

The road from the town

The trail then follows dry riverbeds into the formation.

The riverbed

Getting closer to the formations

Up close to the formations you can see the strange patterns left from the erosion.

erosion patterns

Looking up a dry gully

And the myriad of colours.

Multicoloured hills

A red creek bed

Orange and grey creek

Red and grey hills 

The colours of the mountains 

And the incredible views back down the valley through the many coloured mountains of Humahuaca.

Looking back down the gully

Trekking around Tilcara

The hills behind Tilcara - the stones spell out "Bienvenidos a Tilcara"

Tilcara is a small town about an hour North from Purmamarca. It is the site of a large pre-hispanic village called Pucará.

The ruins are about 2 km from the town centre on top of a hill overlooking the river valley.

The view from Pucará

Many of the ruins have been rebuilt for the tourists but on the lower part of the hill the ruins are original, including a graveyard 

The circular graves where mummies were buried

And the foundations and walls of houses.

A part of the ruins

The structure in the centre of the ruins looks like it is some sort of religious temple - but is in fact merely a monument to the archaeologists who first excavated the site.

The monument

On the other side of Tilcara is another pleasant 2 km walk to the Laguna de los Patos. The lagoon itself is not all that impressive

The lagoon

But the walk takes you through some of the farming communities around Tilcara.

A herd of donkeys

Further afield from Tilcara is the little town of Maimara.

Maimara

The town can be reached by following the river valley - however there has been a lot of construction along the river which obscures the road and makes it easy to get very lost (like I did) and there are few "bridges" (ie. Logs and boards) across the river.

The river road

However, the scenery through the farms along the walk is quite pretty.

Farmland with coloured mountains

Farmland by the river

Back in Tilcara, I went to one of the peñas in a bar across from my hostel. Unlike the peñas in Salta which were mainly for the tourists, the ones in Tilcara are very local affairs with much music and dancing.

The whole bar was dancing (yes, including me - considering the band made an effort to call out the only Australian in the bar)

And even the local kids get involved jamming with the band.

This kid really shredded the pan pipes

The peña went well into the night which made the next day's trekking to the Gargantua del Diablo harder than it should've been.

The start of the trail

This steep 8km trek leads to a big canyon that was formed by tectonic plate movement rather than water. The trail leads through desert past countless giant cacti.

The trail through the desert

And eventually leads to the canyon.

The canyon

It's hard to capture how deep the canyon is through photos, but this sign may give an indication.

It's very high

At the bottom of the canyon there is a short 1km trek up the canyon floor to a waterfall.

The canyon floor

The waterfall

The total round trip is about 18km, and after the peña the night before, I was ready to relax with some local food before heading to the next Northern town: Humahuaca.

Llama capaccio

Llama steak