Seven days, three worlds: the vineyards and adobe villages of the Calchaquí valleys, the high, empty Puna with its salt flats, and the Quebrada de Humahuaca with its painted hills and colonial churches. Someone else does the driving, and every day has its short walk, an hour or less, enough to leave the road and feel the place underfoot. At the end, the road runs out at Iruya, a village of steep stone lanes where the mountains close in on every side.
Day 1 · Salta
Highlight · A first evening in Salta, at the start of the road north.
Arrival in Salta and the first evening in the city.
Night · Salta
Day 2 · Over the Cuesta del Obispo to Cachi and Cafayate
Highlight · The Recta del Tin Tin at 3,000 m, with the Nevado de Cachi on the horizon.
Walk · Quebrada de las Flechas
Up the Quebrada de Escoipe and the Cuesta del Obispo to the Piedra del Molino, at 3,600 m, then across the Los Cardones national park along the Recta del Tin Tin, traced by the native people at 3,000 m with the Nevado de Cachi, over 6,000 m, on the horizon. Cachi, cobbled and colonial, has its cactus-wood church and an archaeological museum of 5,000 pieces covering 10,000 years. After lunch, south through Seclantás, Molinos, San Carlos and Animaná, villages that dry peppers for paprika, and a short walk among the white sandstone blades of the Quebrada de las Flechas before Cafayate, at 1,700 m among its vineyards.
Night · Cafayate
Day 3 · Quebrada de las Conchas to Salta
Highlight · On foot among the wind- and water-carved formations of the Quebrada de las Conchas.
Walk · Quebrada de las Conchas · 40 min–1 h · easy
North through the Quebrada de las Conchas, its colours and shapes carved by wind and water, with an easy walk among the formations, and back to Salta.
Night · Salta
Day 4 · Road to the Clouds, Salinas Grandes and Purmamarca
Highlight · The white expanse of Salinas Grandes, between the Puna and the switchbacks of the Cuesta de Lipán.
Walk · Santa Rosa de Tastil · up to 1 h
Three circuits in one day. Up the Quebrada del Toro along the line of the Train to the Clouds to Santa Rosa de Tastil, a vast archaeological site at 3,000 m, for a walk. Over 4,080 m at the Muñano variant to San Antonio de los Cobres, a town asleep in the solitude of the Puna, for lunch. Then 90 km north on the old Ruta 40 to the white expanse of Salinas Grandes, over 4,170 m and down the switchbacks of the Cuesta de Lipán to Purmamarca, at the foot of the Cerro de los Siete Colores.
Night · Purmamarca
Day 5 · Up the Quebrada de Humahuaca to Iruya
Highlight · Iruya, a colonial refuge of cobbled lanes with its church on a viewpoint over the valley.
Walk · Outskirts of Iruya
North through the Quebrada: Tilcara and its Pucará, a partly rebuilt pre-Columbian stronghold with a high-altitude botanical garden; the Tropic of Capricorn at Huacalera; Uquía, whose 17th-century church keeps a gilded altarpiece and a series of Cuzco-school paintings of angels bearing arquebuses; Humahuaca, with its independence monument, for lunch. Then off the main road to Iruya, a colonial refuge of cobbled lanes and adobe houses with a church on a viewpoint over the valley, and a walk on the outskirts of the village.
Night · Iruya
Day 6 · Iruya to Salta
Highlight · A walk along the Quebrada de Humahuaca on the long way back down to Salta.
Back down the Quebrada de Humahuaca, with the day's walk on the way, to Salta.
Night · Salta
Day 7 · Salta
Highlight · The journey closes in Salta, where it began.
The journey ends in Salta.
