Almost a rest day. Short easy ride today with 425m/1400ft of descent to another touristy town.

Today I continued to follow a valley downhill with grades at ~1% or occasionally 2% downhill. I crossed two small villages before reaching Tilcara.

The bus stops are getting fancier mural paintings.

It seems to be a touristy area with places like this selling pottery and other wares. Apparently, the mountain scenery as well as early civilization ruins are the attractions.

Some of the canyon along the way.

More scenery.

More of the canyon.

I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn today.

In North America, I usually had the midday sun on my face. I started at 70 degrees north latitude so at solstice the sun was approximately 45 degrees from the horizon. By the time I was in Baja around 23 degrees, it was winter solstice and so still around 45 degrees from the horizon.

In South America, I’ve usually had the midday sun behind. Even in Colombia when I was 10 degrees north, it was April and hence the midday sun was further north. The Tropic of Capricorn is the point where the sun is overhead at (southern hemisphere) summer solstice, and hence after this point, the midday sun will always be north all year long.

Made it to Tilcara before noon as well as before time the cafes close for the midday siesta. Nice little touristy town to wander through. As the sign indicates, this is a World Heritage location,

One of the murals in town.