So said Fabrizio, our driver for today... well, truthfully what he said was "What´s the name of that actress, she´s English I think, Julie Andrews! she did this tour with me." It was only when I asked if she started singing when she got in the hills that he looked confused and asked which film that was from and that she played Queen Elizabeth and M in the James Bond films... ahhh! You mean Judy Dench. Yes, he said, and I only realized when she sent me a photo later.

This was on the way up to the valley of the moon (Valle de la luna), more properly, if carefully, called Ischigualasto. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and we couldn´t do the complete circuit or go to the massive red sandstone towers of Talampaya because of rain a few days before.

It didn´t really matter though, and in some ways a cool day was better, in summer here the temperatures can reach 48C.

We started with a detailed demonstration of the work of the geologists and paleontologists in the valley (where they found the most primitive dinosaur remains in the world). The have the whole mesozoic to work on (245 million years ago to 60 million years ago).

The valley of the moon is an arid valley cut into a striped rocky landscape. It´s 25Km long and 15Km wide. The photo is from one tiny part, the field of balls (cancha de boliches), which are formed by wind erosion. It´s a pretty impressive area and the guides were really practiced. You have to be accompanied as you go round and there are strict boundaries beyond which they´ll shoot you if you trespass (I may have got that a bit wrong, it was windy and I wasn´t really listening). That´s because every November they so a month´s digging, when the weather is stable, and they keep coming up with fossils.
  ¶ 12:55 AM