Through the Desert

After a long bus ride (22 hours) I arrived in Salta in north-western Argentina. This region is mostly desert so it’s pretty dry, something I was looking forward to after a hot, humid Buenos Aires. It’s not all desert though and there are plenty of lush, green areas as well.

The first few days were spent exploring the city of Salta. Lots of nice streets, restaurants and cafes, and a good walk up about a thousand stairs to San Bernardo that has a good view of the city. I took the cable car down though. With a thousand stairs it’s enough to walk one-way, especially in 30 degrees heat.

There’s also a lot of traditional dancing in Salta. This is gaucho (cowboy) land and the dances are very different to the tango all over Buenos Aires (and nicer to watch in my opinion). I did visit a peña with a pretty impressive show but every know and then there were dance shows in the streets as well.

But the best parts of the Salta region lies outside of the city of Salta. My first trip out of the city was a tour with the Tren A Las Nubes, Train to the Clouds in English. This train used to cross the Andes from Salta and all the way out to the coast in Chile and is super impressive, especially because of the altitude and its climbs.

These days you can only ride it a short 21km but at least they’ve chosen to keep the best part open. During those 21km through the high altitude desert the train climbs from an altitude of 3775m up to 4220m. The ride is very scenic and ends at a pretty impressive bridge, 63 meters high and 224 meters long. And again, this was built at an altitude of over 4000 meters.

Next trip out of the city was to San Lorenzo, a small town just outside of the city. The goal wasn’t really the town though, but the quebrada (deep valley/ravine) just outside. A perfect place for a hot day as it’s very green and has a small river running through that you walk along, and sometimes even have to wade through. One flip-flop lost but it could be recovered a bit further down the stream.

And then it was time for the best part of Salta, the 3-day road trip to Cafayate and Cachi. There are day tours available to both places but this trip is so much better with a car. The roads are ridiculously scenic and really fun to drive, though pretty tiring as they are super windy and ranges from perfect asphalt to pretty bad dirt roads with water crossings. Still possible to do with a compact though. 4x4 not needed.

The road towards Cafayate passes (with only a short detour) Dique de las Conchas, a beautiful area with green hills and a nice drive along the lake.

Then we started gaining altitude and the landscape changed drastically in only a few kilometres. It turned into desert. But it’s not only flat desert. It is full of cliffs, rocks, and hills, and when you’re close to the river you get a drastic contrast between the green vegetation and the red soil around it.

And then we got to Cafayate, a small, really touristic, but also really cosy town, and known as the centre of wine in the region, and probably the best in the entire Argentina just second to Mendoza. Some wineries were closed but there was still plenty of wine to try. I don’t know much about wine but the feeling I got was that the wines here were a drier (but still fruity) and powerful than the sweet wines in Mendoza.

Then the roads started turning rough. There was about 140km of more or less bad gravel and dirt road to get to Cachi. But it was worth the drive with the stunning landscapes it provided. Not sure if we’re still on earth or somehow ended up on the moon…

Cachi itself is a small village. Not so much to see and do but it was cute and a much needed lunch break before the next part of the drive which also turned out to be amazing; Parque Nacional los Cardones.

The road through the park started out with a fairly high plateau full of cacti, eventually climbing up to an altitude of almost 3500m before descending in a ridiculously windy manner. Super fun (but tiring) drive, super scenic, and highly recommended!

That’s all for the Salta region. Time to head north!