After THIRTY SIX hours on a bus, we spent a few days recovering in the large city of Jujuy, eating tamales and drinking litres of wine. We had five days off the bike, and we were ready to get moving again. (Although we did have some inertia to overcome-lying in the hotel bed listening to the rain pour like a tropical torrent was not exactly the thing to inspire us to get out of bed.)

Leaving Jujuy was suprisingly pleasant. For one thing, it wasn´t raining. Usually, when we´ve left a place, it´s been busy with cars and smelly with exhaust, and generally really awful. (Puerto Montt, Chile was the absolute worst.) However, there was a street that paralleled the highway for a few kilometers, with almost no traffic, that wound it´s way through the nicer parts of town and out to join the major road.

Everything was green and wet. There were air plants, tsilandias, all over the electrical cables and trees. Very lush, not cold, humid. Almost like home, only more tropical.

And then we started the gentle climbing that we figured would last the rest of the day. Our destination was Purmamarca, a small town that had been repeatedly recommended for it´s amazing scenery.

The road was not very hard, even though we were gaining altitude. Then we hit a detour-wet ripio and run-off over the road, granny gears all the way. Just as that section ended, it started raining for real.

This was some serious rain. Not hard, just incredible volume. And we continued to climb. It started gettting much, much harder, like we were going over possibly the steepest pass yet. When we stopped for lunch in a bus shelter, we could see the angle of the slope and the sheets of water sluicing down it.

Visibility was terrible-we were in the clouds and couldn´t see very far at all. Luckily, neither could the autos, and the trucks going up hill weren´t going much faster than we were. Traffic coming down hill was also incredibly slow.

Near the top (of course, we didn´t know how long this climb was going to be as topo maps are unheard of here), we met a Swiss bike tourist solo on a tandem. His partner had been rushed to Jujuy the night before with altitude sickness. Yikes! But he assured us that there were only a few more meters of climbing, and then it levelled off. And so it was.

Visibility started to get better, the rain began to slack, and we crested the pass. At the top: an incredible desert landscape, red sand stone and scrub brush, and saguaro cactus all over the slopes. It didn´t rain again!

We were incredibly tired, but not very far from Purmamarca, so we kept going. Plus, the red river was running very high and fast, and it looked like we might be in danger of washouts. Not being sure of anything in this new environment (we´ve heard stories of sand mites that put you in the hospital, and the asassin bug, whose bite carries the deadly Chargas´disease) we decided that it would be good to pay for camping and get the lay of the land.

But it was hard. As gorgeous as the paved road and the landscape surrounding it, we were working very hard. The altitude was starting to catch up with us. A friendly policeman told us we had 3k further. I wasn´t sure my pedals could still turn, and we were still climbing.

After three more kilometers of climbing, we arrived in Purmamarca, and realized that everything everyone had said was true. Following the recommendation of the “book” (our travel guide) we found camping Argeninian style, crowded in a yard behind the church. Nothing special, but hot clean water and a level place for the tent.

Purmamarca looks like I imagine Sante Fe looked like many years ago, only authentic. There is a lovely plaza, with vendors selling the ubiquitous handicrafts, arts and crap, and amazing llama and alpaca woolen items. Many of the streets are closed to cars. It´s quiet. While there is more infrastructure than I was expecting (several restaurants, even an ATM machine), the whole town seemed to move at the same rhythm as it has for hundreds of years.

Most importantly, the town is surrounded by the most fascinating geology. It´s famous for the Cerro de Siete Colores, the 7 Colored mountain, which ranges from red through to deep purple due to the mineral deposits. Huge mountains surround the colored foothills, and the sense of geologic time permeates everything.

This northern part of the country is nothing like Patagonia. The people look different, the architecture is different, the language is different (just when I thought I was starting to get it, suddenly I can´t understand anyone, again). It seems more spanish, what with the structure of the towns and the buildings, but no one looks european except the tourists.

There is music everywhere- a peña in a restaurant (folk music group performance), a man playing a traditional guitar type thing in the plaza during siesta, a whole gang of men tooting and honking flutes and pan pipes and drums to some tune long ago forgotten or beat down by enthusiasm. This seems like a culture where playing an instrument is not so much the domain of the musically trained. Rather, almost everyone has an instrument, and feels free to express himself (yes, so far only men playing) with it.

So, more climbing, more altitude, heading North.