Ascending into the mountains

Met a girl and we teamed up to travel up to the Argentina-Bolivia border together.

I was daunted by ascending into the Andes, feared altitude sickness and stomach bugs that travellers around these parts often suffer.

The blue skies were spectacular but the air cooler than it seemed with everything so bathed in sunlight. We found ourselves in a colourful market square. Knitwear everywhere. Llamas and multicoloured stripes, Inca sun shapes everywhere. Panpipes, everything. We even bought some coca leave to chew on to help us adapt to the higher altitude (when in Rome!). They tasted quite disgusting as far as I was concerned and they had no discernible effect other than making my tongue go slightly numb.

We stopped at a few little towns (Purmamarca and Tilcara) throughout the day, taking in the brightly coloured red and even green rocks of the mountains. There were huge cacti everywhere too, and real life llamas.