We'd nearly given up on finding the ruins of Quilmes. Bumping down the rough bitumen road surrounded by cacti, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, except for the tiny villages the popped up every now and again.
When we finally reached the turnoff Jeff commented that the next five kilometres of badly corrugated road would be a very long trip. Nearing the hillside the ruins seemed to materialise in front of us. Camouflaged perfectly against the hillside were lines of stone walls climbing up into a valley.
There was a very brief tour, but it was only in Spanish so we were free to explore and guess the purpose of all the different shaped spaces. We wandered amongst the waist high walls and cacti until we found a path leading up the side of the hill to what appeared to be a lookout post. The city was a defensive one after all, the Quilmes Indians having survived contact with the Inca's but not the Spanish.
Up at the lookout the view to the obviously sprawling city was excellent. On the hill above, more lookout posts had now become apparent. So we kept going up and at each spot we realised there was even more and we could climb higher. But from back on the ground, the lookout posts were almost invisible.
If the 5 kilometres to Quilmes had been bad, then the road between Cafayate and Cachi was excruciating. We travelled one hundred and fifty three teeth rattling kilometres until Jeff's hands felt like they were crawling on the inside. But my god was it worth it!
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