I stopped off in Pumamarca on my way back from Iruya, a beautiful remote village in northern Argentina. I went to these provinces of Jujuy and Salta to see the colorful mountains and meet the Andean people. In these regions, the way of life is very different from the Buenos Aires’ effervescence, which sometimes reminds me of Paris. Here it’s just the opposite. Today, small buses travel over bumpy roads to villages that not so long ago had no means of transportation. During my trip, I sat next to a woman who grew up in Iruya. She told me that every week she and her parents had to walk over 30 km to get food from the nearest store! It seems unreal, just like the landscape around me. The villages here are located between 2,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level in a fairly desert-like area. In fact, a long time ago, in the Cretaceous period between – 143 million to – 66 million years ago, several seas covered these lands and the mountains were hidden beneath the waters. The variety of colors that these rocks show today is the result of a succession of geological layers of different colors, ranging from red to dark green, black, purple, white and yellow. These color variations are related to the marine and continental sediments that were deposited, and in real life, it’s absolutely magnificent!