There were occasional houses down in the valley but I don't know how they mad a living out of this landscape

A general view of the hills as we climbed up

A stop to look at the geology. The detector on the tripod at this stage

An unidentified yellow flower probably a 'solanum' of some variety

So arid in the hills that there were cacti in places

You can see the road here skirting along the slope of a deep valley.

I think this was close to the high section before starting to descend

Now we start looking at rocks

The road we'll eventually take is in the distance - but it will take a while to get there!

Thee are animals grazing but hard to make out what they are - possibly goats

Some deeply weathered areas with no vegetation visible

A roadside shrine (or two?) probably commemorating deaths in an accident at some time

The Land Rovers on the road - we were taking a break as well as checking the geology

A cactus plant on the left and a rather poorly looking tree. Note the horizontal beds in the distant hillside as we climbed up

From time to time we would see roadside shrines commemorating deaths in an accident we surmised. This was quite a fancy one dated some17 years earlier

One of the few flowers I saw on the high land. Online plant ID identified it as 'desert verbena' - seems likely

A view looking back to the low land we had left behind and some of the rugged terrain

A view back to the low ground we had left and some of the extreme terrain we were driving through. There is just a glimps of the road lower left

A view across the landscape showing horizontal bedding and a lot of weathering - fairly unforgiving terrain

An illustration of the dryness here large cacti

A nice view of how every bit of flattish land is cultivated here before we climbed right up to the top

Taking some radioactivity measurements of the rocks - we were working after all!

That is the LWB Land Rover in the distance showing how dusty the road was, and how it is cut into the hillside

Three vicuña in the distance

Vicuña close up (this is where my expensive telephoto lens cma in handy)

There are two vicuña in the middle

Vicuña on the horizon

Vicuna in the distance

There are three vicuña on the picture

A herd of vicina - a rare sight at the time

Llamas grazing in the distance

These are vicuna

Llamas - probably

Another view of the nice geology in the distance - I have no information i my notes though

Near the high point (4,000m asl) - suddenly a shack by the road. Sometimes these would turn out to be a place selling drink as sometimes food. One of the few straight sections of road as well

We did get closer to some llamas as we drove along

Some nice dipping beds in the distance with possibly llamas grazing in the near distance

Very much a peneplain at the high point

We did pass the occasional homestead, although this one didn't look in good condition but the ?resident is just loading his donkeys. Some effort has gone into building the stome walls though

Some areas were less rugged but this was in the higher area so no real signs of habitation or cultivation

A couple of ladies looking after some sheep

Although very mountainous you can see any flattish areas were cultivated as on the far hillside

Truly rugged countryside

A slightly blurred picture of a village in the valley

This picture tells a story if you know - the road on the left is what we were on when I took this picture. The road on the right is where we would be - after driving several km up the valley until there was crossing point. This became a feature of driving in the mountainous country

Quite a contrast from the hillsides to the valley bottom

Any flat ground in these areas was cultivated as you can see

I managed to spot a cactus in flower - and it does illustrate the dry conditions on the hills

In the valley there are fields and some livestock with a few trees in the distance

Down in the valley - farms and fields. I don't know what the things are lower down the photo ?Adobe bricks possibly

Filling the Land Rover with petrol from a can using a funnel

Here you can see the depth of the valleys and if you look very carefully you can see the road zig-zagging down the valley side on the lower left

A more general view across a valley

A small town - I have no information

Down in the valley there were farms and in the centre of this picture is a threshing platform (I think)

A view across the almost level high area

At the high point here I think before dropping down to Chalhuanca

Our (mine and Uisdean) shared room in Hotel Zegarra, Chalhuanca