The Northwest is the part of Argentina that feels least like the rest of it: adobe villages, churches older than the country, vineyards at altitudes where vines shouldn't grow, and mountains striped in colours that look painted on. It is also ideal driving country. In a week and some 900 km, the loop from Salta climbs into the Calchaquí valleys, follows the old Ruta 40 down to Cafayate, and turns north into the Quebrada de Humahuaca, with time on foot at almost every stop.
Day 1 · Salta
Highlight · The Inca mummies of Llullaillaco at the MAAM, then a peña with live folk music.
The car is collected on arrival, and the afternoon belongs to the city: the colonial centre is best walked, seven blocks of arcades, churches and the MAAM museum, with its Inca mummies from the summit of Llullaillaco. The view from Cerro San Bernardo puts the whole Lerma valley in perspective, and the evening ends where Salta's evenings end, over regional food and a peña with live folk music.
Night · Salta
Day 2 · Over the Cuesta del Obispo to Cachi
Highlight · The dead-straight Recta del Tin Tin, on the line of an old Inca road.
Drive · 162 km · 3 h · last 26 km gravel
Walk · Valle Encantado · 14 km · 6 h
The road leaves Salta south and climbs the Cuesta del Obispo in long switchbacks to the Piedra del Molino pass, into the Los Cardones national park and down the dead-straight Recta del Tin Tin, which runs on the line of an old Inca road. The day's walk is the Valle Encantado, at the park entrance, among condors, foxes and rock art, often between clouds.
Night · Cachi
Day 3 · Ruta 40 to Cafayate
Highlight · The lunar landscape of tilted rock blades in the Quebrada de las Flechas.
Drive · 160 km · 4 h · 138 km gravel
Walk · Los Médanos · 1 h · easy
The most beautiful stretch of the Ruta 40 in the north, and one of the roughest. Colte, where ponchos are still woven by hand; Molinos and its church; then the Quebrada de las Flechas, a lunar landscape of tilted rock blades. The afternoon in Cafayate goes to a Torrontés winery, or to the dunes of Los Médanos at the edge of town.
Night · Cafayate
Day 4 · Cafayate
Highlight · A ten-metre fall with pools for swimming, up the Río Colorado past cave paintings.
Walk · Río Colorado · 6 km · 5 h
Walk · Quebrada de Cafayate · 3.5 km
A free day in the vineyards. The walk to the waterfalls of the Río Colorado follows the river upstream to a ten-metre fall with pools for swimming and cave paintings on the way, with Diaguita families from the community offering to guide. The gentler option is the Quebrada de Cafayate, among carved rock. A lunch with a family of the local community tourism network is another way to spend the day.
Night · Cafayate
Day 5 · Quebrada de las Conchas to Purmamarca
Highlight · Los Castillos of the Quebrada de las Conchas, and the Paseo de los Colorados at the end of the day.
Drive · 385 km · 5 h 30 · paved
Walk · Los Colorados · 1 h · easy
The longest day, all on tarmac. First the Quebrada de las Conchas, with its Garganta del Diablo, Anfiteatro and Los Castillos, then the Lerma valley through Salta, and finally the climb into the Quebrada de Humahuaca, past Volcán and Tumbaya. In Purmamarca, the craft market on the square and the Paseo de los Colorados, behind the Cerro de los Siete Colores.
Night · Purmamarca
Day 6 · Tilcara and back to Salta
Highlight · The Pucará of Tilcara, a restored pre-Inca hilltop fortress, and a fifteen-metre waterfall in a canyon.
Drive · 228 km · paved
Walk · Garganta del Diablo
North up the Quebrada to Tilcara, 26 km away: the Pucará, a restored pre-Inca hilltop fortress, the archaeological museum and the short walk to the Garganta del Diablo, a fifteen-metre waterfall in a canyon full of birds. On the way back south, a stop facing the Paleta del Pintor at Maimará.
Night · Salta
Day 7 · Salta
Highlight · The car returned in Salta, where the journey began, before the flight out.
The car is returned in the city before the flight out.
