The overnight bus ride was a treat. Big comfy reclining seats, tv, hot food (free) and heating!! And saved us a night accomodation so win win situation. We were sleeping and almost missed our stop at Catamarca at 7am, had other people not wanted our seats who knows where we would of ended up.. So Catamarca itself is a little off the tourist trail which is very nice as we have been like celebrities here. Seriously we are left wondering, have they never seen real life blonde hair and blue eyes before. Even worse than Asia everyone stares and is very enquizitive but polite and friendly with hardly any English and our Spanish very poor we seem to point and smile alot.

The purpose of our stop here was to attend the annual poncho festival that has live music and artists etc.. Well the first day we attended we were a little early at midday, the sun was shining so we decided surprisingly enough to sit and have a cerveza.. Well one cerveza wasnt where it ended, as a group of 4 very nice young men decided to try chat to us, lanuage difficulties aside we had a great day however didnt even get to see a poncho!! It could of got very messy but we bolted at 7pm back to our room and slept for 13hours. Getting up and heading back out to the festival this time determined to see what was going on past the beer tents. It is a really good family outing with rides for the kids, music tents, poncho tents, food and wine tents etc. It was very busy. We both made purchases, Karen bought some art and an alpaca poncho and I got a lovely hand made llama shawl (to keep us warm when we hit Bolivia)..

The festival aside, Catamarca is still worth the stopover, it is very warm here as it is in a basin surrounded by hills. The locals must think we are crazy in mid winter still walking around in t shirts with sunburn when they are all wrapped up in fleece and thermals and avoiding the sun..

So now we are back in a bus terminal awaiting an overnight bus to go further north. We shall keep you all posted on our next adventures and photos will be on as soon as poss.