Tilcara, Argentina

As soon as I crossed the border to Argentina and I've seen all those Fiat cars running, one guy with the slogan "Napoli siamo noi" printed on the t-shirt and another one wearing the Juventus jersey, I realized that Italy is not too far from me now, that my journey is not too far to the end. It's two days I'm in Tilcara, a small town in Northwestern Argentina, in the Jujuy region, in the middle of the Quebrada de Humahuaca - a world heritage site famous for the vivid shining colours of its mountains. I came here upon suggestions of an Argentinian couple met in Quito who strongly suggested me to see it, so here I am! I've visited many small interesting Quechua-speaking mountain towns during these days: Purmamarca, Humahuaca, San Salvador de Jujuy and Iruya, an incredible isolated tiny town at 4000 metres high, reached only by a gravel unapproachable road. Was definitely worthy to be seen. The only shame there was a bonehead guy into the ticket office who made me miss the bus because he had no change! Yeah, you understood well! I missed my bus because he didn't sell me the ticket because he had no change for my money! What the hell??? By the way, the geographical area included within the boundaries of Southwestern Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northwestern Argentina is really stunning, I didn't expect so much: higher mountains, geysers, salt flats, unbelievable colours, there's all. Here the landscape is similar to Arizona and Nevada, it looks really close to those US states, except by the fact that there are no tourists at all here! Well, to be honest is not spectacular and deep like the Grand Canyon, the Bryce National Park or the Death Valley, but for sure it's similar as well as amazing. The morphology must have been the same as the colours, the rock formations and the cliff shapes are identical.
Anyway, after some weeks spent on the Andes in 5 different countries, tomorrow I'm gonna leave this mountain range. Now I can say with no doubt that the Andes are higher, wilder and bigger than the Alpes, but the Alpes are definitely much much much more beautiful. Word of Lonelytraveller, Amen.