I was sitting outside one of my favourite local restaurants in Buenos Aires one balmy evening when I noticed the name of the street it was on – Humahuaca. Pronounced umawhacka, I loved the sound of it. It’s a place, I discovered and I decided, in that moment, that I was going to go there.
We left the chaos of downtown Jujuy (another great name, pronounced hoohooey), snaked quickly through the dense green hills surrounding the city and started to climb high into the mountains. The landscape changed dramatically – on both sides of the road rose high walls of barren rock striped pink, purple, red, yellow, fringed by plains of bulbous thorny cacti. Below ran the Rio Grande, almost dry after the end of summer rains but still marked by a winding green ribbon of willow trees and tall cedars along its banks.
The tin bus churned and strained as we rose higher and higher. Finally it limped into Humahuaca which gives its name to the small market town we arrived in and also the dramatic gorge we’d just driven along – La Quebrada de Humahuaca. La Quebrada de Humahuaca de Jujuy. Of such names adventures and legends are made.
We left the chaos of downtown Jujuy (another great name, pronounced hoohooey), snaked quickly through the dense green hills surrounding the city and started to climb high into the mountains. The landscape changed dramatically – on both sides of the road rose high walls of barren rock striped pink, purple, red, yellow, fringed by plains of bulbous thorny cacti. Below ran the Rio Grande, almost dry after the end of summer rains but still marked by a winding green ribbon of willow trees and tall cedars along its banks.
The tin bus churned and strained as we rose higher and higher. Finally it limped into Humahuaca which gives its name to the small market town we arrived in and also the dramatic gorge we’d just driven along – La Quebrada de Humahuaca. La Quebrada de Humahuaca de Jujuy. Of such names adventures and legends are made.
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