The Northwest of Argentina and the Atacama of Chile are one landscape cut by a border: the same Puna, the same salt flats, the same volcanoes. This road trip treats them as one. From Salta it runs down the Calchaquí valleys and up onto the high plateau, crosses the Andes to San Pedro de Atacama for three nights, and comes back into Argentina to finish in the Quebrada de Humahuaca and the mountain village of Iruya.
Day 1 · Salta to Cafayate
Highlight · The red walls of the Quebrada de las Conchas, the Garganta del Diablo and the Anfiteatro.
South out of Salta through the tobacco fields of the Lerma valley, then into the Quebrada de las Conchas, a gorge of red sandstone carved by wind and river into towers, arches and amphitheatres. The Garganta del Diablo and the Anfiteatro are short walks from the road. At the end of the gorge the valley opens into the vineyards of Cafayate.
Night · Cafayate
Day 2 · Cafayate
Highlight · A glass of Torrontés among vineyards at seventeen hundred metres.
A day in and around town. Cafayate is the home of Torrontés, the white grape of the high valleys, and its wineries, large and small, are a few minutes from the square. The afternoon can go to a walk up the Río Colorado to its waterfalls, or back to the first stretch of the Quebrada de las Conchas in the late light.
Night · Cafayate
Day 3 · Ruta 40 to Cachi
Highlight · The tilted slabs of the Quebrada de las Flechas.
North on the Ruta 40 through the Calchaquí valleys, mostly on gravel. Past San Carlos the road enters the Quebrada de las Flechas, a field of grey rock blades tilted towards the sky, then the adobe villages of Angastaco, Molinos and Seclantás, the weavers' village of the valley. Cachi, white and quiet under the Nevado de Cachi, is the end of the day.
Night · Cachi
Day 4 · North up the valley
Highlight · A quiet night on a finca before the climb to the Puna.
A morning in Cachi, with its church of cardón wood and its archaeological museum on the square, then on up the valley to a finca, a night in the country before the climb to the high plateau.
Night · Cachi
Day 5 · Up to the Puna
Highlight · San Antonio de los Cobres, the old mining and railway town at the top of the Train to the Clouds.
Out of the valley and onto the Puna, the high plateau of the Andes, to San Antonio de los Cobres, a town of adobe houses at almost four thousand metres. It grew around the mines and the railway to Chile, and its station is the base of the Train to the Clouds and the La Polvorilla viaduct. A short day helps with the altitude.
Night · San Antonio de los Cobres
Day 6 · Salinas Grandes and across the Andes
Highlight · The white of the Salinas Grandes, then the Paso de Jama into Chile.
North across the Puna to the Salinas Grandes, a white salt flat where the salineros still cut salt by hand, then west by Susques to the Paso de Jama, the border, at more than four thousand metres. On the Chilean side the road runs past volcanoes and high lagoons before the long descent to San Pedro de Atacama, at about two thousand four hundred metres. A long day, with the border formalities on the way.
Night · San Pedro de Atacama
Day 7 · San Pedro de Atacama
Highlight · Sunset over the Valle de la Luna.
San Pedro is an adobe oasis in the driest desert on earth, and the base for three days out into it. A first day close to town: the Salar de Atacama and the flamingos of the Laguna Chaxa, and at the end of the afternoon the Valle de la Luna, its dunes and salt ridges turning red and violet as the sun goes down.
Night · San Pedro de Atacama
Day 8 · San Pedro de Atacama
Highlight · The geysers of El Tatio steaming in the first light, or the high lagoons of Miscanti and Miñiques.
A second day higher up. The geysers of El Tatio, more than four thousand metres up, are seen at dawn, when the cold makes the columns of steam tallest; the alternative is the altiplanic lagoons of Miscanti and Miñiques, deep blue under the volcanoes. Both are usually done with a local guide from town, leaving before dawn for El Tatio.
Night · San Pedro de Atacama
Day 9 · Back across the Andes to Purmamarca
Highlight · Down the Cuesta de Lipán to Purmamarca and the Cerro de los Siete Colores.
Back up to the Paso de Jama and into Argentina, across the Puna and past the Salinas Grandes again, then down the switchbacks of the Cuesta de Lipán into the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Purmamarca is an adobe village around its church, at the foot of the Cerro de los Siete Colores, with a craft market on the square.
Night · Purmamarca
Day 10 · Purmamarca to Iruya
Highlight · Over the Abra del Cóndor and down to Iruya, hanging on its mountainside.
North up the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a World Heritage site, past Tilcara and Humahuaca, then off the main road onto the gravel to Iruya. The road climbs to the Abra del Cóndor, around four thousand metres, at the border with Salta, and drops in curves to a village of stone and adobe hanging over its river.
Night · Iruya
Day 11 · Iruya
Highlight · The walk up the riverbed to San Isidro.
A day on foot, with no driving. The classic walk follows the riverbed up to San Isidro, a hamlet of farming families with no road; the shorter alternative is the climb to the lookout above the village. In the evening Iruya is very quiet.
Night · Iruya
Day 12 · Iruya to Salta
Highlight · A last run down the Quebrada de Humahuaca to Salta.
Back over the pass and down the length of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, then south through Jujuy to Salta, where the trip began.
