Quebrada de Humahuaca

Interesting facts

At Huacalera a monolith that doubles as a sundial marks the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Inti Raymi sun festival is held there at the winter solstice.

The colonial church at Uquía, built around 1691, holds a rare series of "arquebusier angels": winged figures in Spanish dress carrying firearms.

Those angel paintings were made by indigenous artists of the Cusco School in the seventeenth century.

Rock art and carved stones at Inca Cueva, in the upper valley, are estimated to be around 10,000 years old.

The valley floor climbs from about 1,600 metres in the south to around 4,500 metres on the surrounding heights.

The name Humahuaca probably comes from the Omaguaca people; one Quechua reading, uma waka, connects it with the words for "head" and "treasure".

The Serranía de Hornocal is popularly called the Hill of Fourteen Colours for its many-coloured bands of limestone.

Beyond its role in the Independence War, the valley was also a battleground in the war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation.

The World Heritage cultural landscape covers about 172,000 hectares, ringed by a buffer zone more than twice that size.

Giant cardón cacti, protected in the region, stand on the slopes, and vicuñas graze the high ground above the valley.

Why it is worth it

The Quebrada de Humahuaca is a narrow mountain valley in Jujuy province in Argentina's far north-west, running north to south for about 155 km between the high plateau of the Altiplano and the lower hills to the east. The Río Grande flows through it, dry in winter and a torrent in the summer rains. What stops travellers in their tracks is the colour of the mountains: layers of sediment laid down in ancient seas, lakes and rivers and then pushed upward by the Andes show up as bands of contrasting colour, with fossils embedded in the rock.

The most famous views are at the side valleys. At Purmamarca the little adobe village sits at the foot of the Cerro de los Siete Colores, the Hill of Seven Colours, one of Argentina's best-known landscapes. About 25 km from Humahuaca town, the Serranía de Hornocal exposes the banded limestone of the Yacoraite formation along a range that reaches 4,761 metres.

The valley has been a route for people for at least 10,000 years. Stone-walled farming terraces, some more than 1,500 years old and still farmed today, climb the slopes, and fortified hilltop towns called pucarás guard the route. The best known is the Pucará de Tilcara, built by the Omaguaca people from around the twelfth century and partly rebuilt as an open-air museum. The Incas later used the valley as a caravan road; under Spanish rule it linked Buenos Aires with Peru, and during the wars of independence it was the scene of many battles. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003.

Getting there

National Route 9 runs north through the valley from San Salvador de Jujuy: Purmamarca is about 65 km from the provincial capital, Tilcara about 85 km and Humahuaca about 125 km. Gobernador Horacio Guzmán International Airport (JUJ), which serves San Salvador de Jujuy, is the nearest airport.

From the encyclopaedia

The Quebrada de Humahuaca is a narrow mountain valley located in the province of Jujuy in northwest Argentina, 1,649 km (1,025 mi) north of Buenos Aires. It is about 155 km (96 mi) long, oriented north–south, bordered by the Altiplano in the west and north, by the Sub-Andean hills in the east, and by the warm valleys in the south.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia