Next to Patagonia, the Salta and JuJuy regions in the far north towards Bolivia are the most visited parts of Argentina. The area offers fantastic mountain formations and peaks over 6000 meters. You can get around by bus, guided tours, or rental car.
From BA, the easiest way is to fly to the city of Salta, the largest in the area. Spend a day or two in Salta, which is lively and has a beautiful colonial-style old town with the lovely Plaza 9 de Julio park in the center. Around the park, there are restaurants with outdoor seating that offer good and affordable food. The price level is significantly lower than in Buenos Aires.
At one end of the park is a magnificent cathedral with a lavishly gilded interior. You will also find an archaeological museum here, specializing in mountain excavations. Among other things, they have two Inca mummies found at sacrificial sites, one on a 6000-meter-high volcano.
A block east, you’ll find the colorful San Francisco church, and next door, a hidden gem, Restaurant Patio San Francisco. The restaurant is secluded and shaded, serving very good and affordable food. Here, I had the best Ojo de Bife I’ve had in Argentina, and at half the price of what you would pay in BA. And Papas Andenos, which are fried half cut potatoes. A delightful change from the fries. (Read here on steak variants: Buenos Aires )
Accommodation
I am used to using Booking.com to find accommodation. They have many accommodations in the area, but several times it happened that I received confirmation, only to be told the next day that they couldn’t accommodate us after all. And WhatsApp seems to be the preferred form of communication.
Outside of cities, there is usually no mobile coverage and very few accommodations on Booking.com. But we found one through Google Maps and booked a room via WhatsApp. So this is probably the safest way to book, at least to get the booking confirmed.
The quality of accommodations varies greatly. From a tiny room for 40 USD without air conditioning, to a large room in an old colonial building, with air conditioning, a large garden, and a pool for 38 USD. So take some time to study the offers.
Everywhere we have been received kindly. Even though English knowledge is poor, and our Spanish knowledge likewise, this has not been a problem. In accommodations, restaurants, and shops, we have never experienced impatience or irritation, and we have always managed to communicate. Argentinians, in general, are very polite and pleasant to deal with.
Humahuaca
A trip from Salta to Humahuaca is definitely recommended. If you drive, you can choose between Route 9 and 52 from Salta. Route 52 starts poorly but eventually becomes a four-lane road; it is fast but is boring.
Route 9, on the other hand, is a narrow, extremely winding road that goes over a jungle-covered mountain before joining 52 further north. You drive between walls of green, and visibility around the countless bends is absent, so it goes slowly.
Regardless of the route chosen, you need plenty of time. Both to stop for photographs or just admire the fantastic view. If nature experiences have their opposite in Stendhal syndrome, you’ll encounter it here.
You drive all the time at the bottom of the valley as the road slowly climbs to 3000 meters altitude. On both sides, you have mountains. Mountains that constantly change color, first green, then red, and sometimes gray. The mountain sides are by no means smooth and boring but broken up into imaginative formations.
A bit up the valley, Route 52 turns off to Purmamarca, and further to Salinas Grandes and Chile. Here, nature has gone wild and created the Mountain with the 7 Colors. The village of Purmamarca is surrounded by layered mountains with different hues. The place is a tourist magnet, so expect quite a few people. The colorful mountains continue further up towards the mountain pass, but more on that later.
Humahuaca is a pleasant village with cobblestone streets, many accommodations, and lots of people. A little north of the town, you’ll find Quebrada de Humahuaca where nature has gone wild again with colors and formations.
In Humahuaca, we thought we’d splurge a bit and booked a room in the upper price range, i.e., 40 USD per night. Also lured by the fact that they had free parking. We were a bit disappointed that the room was the smallest we have seen, it was almost impossible to bring in the luggage, and the parking was on the street outside. Breakfast was, even for Argentina, very Spartan.
Salinas Grandes / Ruta 52
Our original plan was to drive Route 52 to Salinas Grandes and then take Route 40 south to Cafayate. Route 40 is famous. It is Argentina’s answer to Route 66 and stretches from the border with Bolivia to the far south of Patagonia. The problem is that this part of 40 between Susques and Cafayate is also the worst. Gravel all the way, and you have to cross one of the world’s highest mountain passes, Abra del Acay at 4950 meters, only surpassed by a few places in the Himalayas. When it’s summer and there’s some rain with the risk of washing out and landslides, and we’re alone in a rental car, albeit with four-wheel drive, we found it risky.
But we drove 40 a bit from Cafayate and north later, read here: coming
However, we wanted to see Salinas Grandes, and Route 52 itself is worth the trip. You pass Purmamarca and the 7 colors, but the colorful mountains pursue you upwards. And up it goes. First gently, but soon in a series of hairpin bends until you pass the highest point at 4170 meters. Right after the pass, you will be able to glimpse the white salt covering the Salina Grande salt lake. The road is wide and fine and asphalted all the way. There are many heavy trucks on the road heading for, or coming from Chile- They crawl at 5 km/h up the steepest slopes..
Santuario de Tres Pozos
After the pass, the road slopes gently down to Salinas Grandes at 3400 meters. The salt lake was nice and white, perhaps not extremely exciting, but the journey over the mountain made it an experience regardless. There are few accommodation options in the area, but with the help of Google Maps and WhatsApp, we found a place in a small village, Santuario de Tres Pozos, where we were well received by a friendly lady and were assigned a large, clean room with a bathroom for 16 USD per night.
The village was also interesting to experience. There wasn’t much colonial style here. The houses consisted solely of brown, homemade clay bricks, placed along a network of wide gravel roads, in the middle of a windy plain with some scruffy llamas. Presumably, it housed workers who worked in the saltworks. The only restaurant was closed, but there was a small Supermarcado that was open.
Altitude Sickness
Altitude sickness is something to consider. A rapid ascent from 2500 meters
to over 4000 meters can make some people sick. It’s entirely individual who gets it. It has no correlation with physical fitness. But there are medicines that might be worth packing in your luggage.
Of the two of us in the travel party, one was quite affected when we arrived at Salinas Grandes and spent the time there sleeping, while the other only had a mild headache that could be cured with a Paracetamol.
Tren a las Nubes
If you don’t drive, you can still get up to the heights. Tren a las Nubes, or the train to the clouds, is one of the highest railways in the world. The spectacular train ride takes you up to 4220 meters. The railway was built for mining and used to cross over to Chile, but is now only operated by tourist trains. There is talk of opening it all the way, but no one knows when.
See: trenalasnubes.com.ar
The Belgrano railway is a narrow-gauge railway network that is mostly closed. But from Salta and north towards Bolivia, there is a lot of effort to restore the line, with new rails and bridges where necessary. This will be a fabulous trip when it’s finished. From what I could see, it’s ready almost to Humahuaca, so in a year or two?
Driving in Argentina
It’s very comfortable to drive in Argentina. Drivers are polite, rules are followed, and the driving style is relaxed. Speed limits are 40 km/h and 60 in urban areas, and 80 on rural roads. However, the signage is somewhat strange. Suddenly, 40 or 60 signs can appear on clear rural roads without sign of housings. And if the speed is reduced, this is never revoked with signs again, so it becomes a bit of guessing. Apart from urban areas, no one cares about these signs.
There are quite often police checkpoints, but we were only checked once in 10 days.
For practical questions like money etc., read here Buenos Aires
Les om Buenos Aires, Bariloche og Salta sør/ Cafayate: category/argentina
