Perfect solar weather

The Highlands
Monday we flew up to Jujuy, right in the north of Argentina, where we were greeted by Raul, an anthropologist who works with the Avina Foundation, the organization that invited us here. We drove a few hours up into the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a broad gorge of stratified vividly coloured rock, with pretty towns and oasis villages - a region recently made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

On Tuesday we drove further up into the highlands, up to 4,000m, across stunning near-desert plains where a few stray lamas graze and dotted with the occasional adobe huts that are typical of the region.

The weather here is perfect for solar. They have 6-10 days of overcast sky a year. The rest of the time, it's a perfect blue, with not a cloud in site. Raul (see photo above) told us that this is because of micro-climatic conditions caused by different air masses and winds surrounding the region. In winter, they have 6-8 hours of strong sunlight a day; in summer it can be up to 12 hours.

Nick