Argentina's rainbow canyon — a UNESCO highland valley where 14-coloured mountains rise above an Andean village unchanged since the independence wars
Humahuaca is a small town of 12,000 at 2,939 metres altitude in the Quebrada de Humahuaca — a UNESCO World Heritage Site canyon valley in the province of Jujuy in northwestern Argentina. The Quebrada has been a trade and cultural route between the Inca Empire and the Río de la Plata for over 10,000 years. The town itself preserves its colonial church, a monument to the heroes of Argentine independence (erected 1903), and whitewashed adobe streets little changed from the 19th century. The Serranía de Hornocal (El Hornocal), 20km away, exposes 14 distinct geological layers in vivid colours visi…
The Quebrada de Humahuaca has been a strategic Andean corridor since pre-Columbian times — settled by the Omaguaca people (after whom it is named), then conquered by the Inca Empire in the 15th century, then by the Spanish in 1537. In the independence wars of the early 19th century, Jujuy province was the scene of repeated battles between patriot forces and the Spanish Army of Upper Peru; Humahuaca's church tower was used as a lookout post. UNESCO inscribed the Quebrada in 2003 as a cultural landscape of outstanding universal value — one of the few places in the Americas where a millennia-old…