Tilcara & Huacalera

The Quebrada de Humahuaca, a World Heritage Site, is a long valley of coloured mountains that has been a road for ten thousand years. Tilcara is its liveliest town, with the Pucará de Tilcara, a fortified hill town of the Omaguaca people rebuilt on its original walls, and a good archaeological museum. Around it, Maimará sits under the hill called the Painter's Palette, Huacalera stands on the Tropic of Capricorn, and the church of Uquía keeps its colonial paintings of angels dressed as soldiers.

Two or three nights in Tilcara or Huacalera make the best base for the Quebrada. A morning at the Pucará and the museum; a walk with a llama caravan; a hike up to the Garganta del Diablo above the town. From here, Purmamarca, Humahuaca and Iruya are all within a day, and the hardest trek of the region leaves Tilcara over the mountains down into the cloud forest of Calilegua.

The Quebrada is dry and clear in winter. Carnival, in the days before Lent, is the great celebration of the valley, and August is the month of offerings to the Pachamama.