Salta – Dec 2025

From the deep southern reaches of the Patagonia we were headed to one of the northernmost provinces of Argentina; Salta. It wasn’t really the right time of year to be heading here, but we were having to last minute fill 12 days that were meant to have been in Antarctica. Given we’d already included all the things we really wanted to do in our 4 month itinerary, it was challenging to find things – particularly given the time of year, and that it was leading into Christmas. We knew December was the start of the rainy season in northern Argentina, and could prove problematic for the roads. And we knew it was going to be hot. But we rolled the dice. So from sub 15°C in Ushuaia we landed at 8:30pm with mid-20°Cs in Salta (via Buenos Aires).

[As a side point for anyone travelling via AEP in Buenos Aires – there is a currency exchange available for foreigners which has reasonable exchange rates. Given the difficulties of finding places to exchange in some parts of the country it is worth changing money there. We were lucky to have a bit of time between our flights as we were in the queue for 45 minutes. Once we got to the front we found we needed to provide proof of our arrival in to Argentina to get the advertised rate. For most people that would be easy as they likely have just flown in, but in our case we had to dig up our bus tickets from a month earlier. Of course there is no signage telling you what documentation you need to provide in advance. I’m sure the queue could have moved twice as fast if everyone was aware of what they needed to show!]

Similar to our hire vehicle in Chile, we ended up with an almost brand new 2WD SUV. We could only hope it had a bit more guts than the earlier vehicle. With some short flight delays, and a bit of difficulty finding our AirBnB it was 9:30pm by the time we arrived. Our host was lovely and helped us get a pizza delivered (Spanish definitely not up for phone ordering of pizza!) so that we could actually get some dinner that night.

The next morning we left Salta city on our 7 day road trip around Salta province.

Our first day we took Route 68 South to Cafayate. If you just drove straight through it would be a bit over three hours (185km), but the last 50km (Quebrada de las Conchas / Gorge of the Shells) has many road side attractions to stop at, so we took about six hours. The landscape really reminded us of South-West USA – all red rock.

We gave a local a lift from Tres Cruces lookout a short way to Santa Barbara and used more Spanish talking to him for 10 minutes than we had in weeks! The drive was spectacular as we were rising from 1,200m in Salta through to 1,700m in Cafayate – we went through many different rock strata layers.

Despite the heat we did a couple of short hikes – Yesero to Los Estratos (~4km round trip?), and we went rogue near El Obelisco and wandered out to the rocks behind it. We found a couple of small canyons which was fun.

I was pretty happy I’d prioritised getting accommodation with a swimming pool, and we were quick to get in once we arrived in Cafayate. (NB. Just when you think you’ve got your head around Spanish you arrive in Argentina and have to adjust for their pronunciation differences – kah-fah-SHAH-teh being the way to pronounce Cafayate)

The next day we decided to get our exercise by walking to the vineyards, and had a sweaty 5.5km walk to Finca Las Nubes. We did a tour and tasting – that was conducted in Spanish (we knew this when we signed up). Given we’ve done so many other winery tours we could kind of follow along since you know the topics that are likely going to be covered. The main reason we were there was the winery got props for being the one of the most scenic in the area – we had lunch with expansive views looking across the vineyards to town.

The slight downhill back to town made the return walk feel far easier. Tom decided we needed another tasting so we managed to sneak in just before closing at Domingo Hermanos. We were glad to get a English speaker running our, very enjoyable, matched cheese and wine tasting.

The other big thing on the ‘to do’ list for Cafayate was to have wine ice cream – so we hunted down the ice cream parlour which supposedly started the flavour. Then it was time for a well earned swim back at our accommodation.

Our exercise the next day was another walk to a winery – but at least this one was only 4km and there was a slight breeze! We got a biligual tour this time, then a tasting. Disappointingly a few of the wines in the tasting had been open a bit too long, and the person leading the tasting didn’t really seem to understand the issue. Fortunately lunch was much better and the service was excellent.

We had to be a bit creative in getting food supplies for the next few days. We wanted to have some lunch items with us – but with the 30°C+ temperatures we could only get things which were going to survive the heat. The next morning we headed out of Cafayate, with 20km of sealed road, before hitting the dirt for the rest of the day. The estimate was 4 hours driving for the 130km we were planning to cover. The road was better than I was expecting – there were no particularly bad corrugations (it may have been recently graded), it was very slow as it was constantly winding in and out of many dry washes. It was a bit disturbing watching the google map showing us driving into rivers – they were dry but could easily change if the rains arrived.

The Quebrada de la Flecha section was stunning. We enjoyed the chance to get out of the car and stretch our legs walking up to a lookout.

It took us about 2h 15 to get to Molinos, where the car was claiming it was 38°C. Sitting in the shade in the tree filled plaza it didn’t feel much over 30°C (cause we’re such good judges of temperature!). The road from Molinos to Colomé Estate was a bit more interesting – a lot more pot-holes, blind corners, sandy sections etc, it probably took us around 50 minutes for 18km.

Our two nights at Colomé Estate were a treat to somewhat compensate for the disappointment of our Antarctic trip being cancelled. Colomé is the oldest winery in Argentina, founded in 1831, and also one of the highest altitude wineries in the world. The original estate is at 2,300m (they also have plantings at higher altitudes).

The James Turrell Art Museum is on site, which we visited on our first evening. No photos allowed in the installations so only one of Tom in his funny shoe covers. Given neither of us are particularly arty, we enjoyed our visit. The only downside was that the tour needs to coincide with sunset (for reasons which will become obvious if you do it) and given how close we were to the summer solstice this was quite late in the day. So we were pretty hungry by the time we got to dinner after 9pm.

Tom had unfortunately picked up some blisters with all our vineyard walking in Cafayate so he decided to have a chill day. I decided to do one of the walks on the property. I lost the directional arrows part way through, but figured since I was supposed to be walking to some cascades (in incredibly dry country) I could just keep walking up the creek that the route had been following. I found an entire cliff full of nesting parrots. We’d seen a similar site on Ruta 68 but, the parrots had largely been out and about, whereas these ones were all home.

I was feeling pretty intrepid as I kept rock hopping my way up the creek, which was now flowing slightly. Then I got to some infrastructure in the creek and realised there was a road that ran the whole way there – which I was probably meant to have been on. I found some cascades just above the infrastructure so figured that was likely the goal, but then I spotted some locals winding there way up the hill. I scrambled up to where I’d seen them and found a foot track which I followed. This took me further up the gorge through some gorgeous granite sections – reminiscent of Morong Deep.

By this point I thought I better head back since I’d told Tom I’d probably be a couple of hours, and I’d already been going over 1.25 hours. As it turned out I took the road on my return and was back much quicker. I still have no idea where I went wrong – but I daresay I had a far more enjoyable time taking my own route.

Sadly we couldn’t enjoy a second leisurely breakfast on the terrace as we needed to be in Seclantás by 8:30am to meet our guide for a trip to Cuevas de Acsibi. That said, it was a far more pleasant temperature to be driving in when we left Colomé at 7am! It took us about 1.5 hours to get to Seclantás (not the 1h per google) – probably in part because there was a road diversion as they were sealing a section.

We met Tony our guide, and got into his 4WD and headed out of town for about an hour onto Tony’s property. The 4WD had its work cut out for it driving in and out of dry washes. We stopped about half way for photos, in the midst of many cacti, with views of the mountains – stunning.

We parked the 4WD about 9:30am and then had 1.5 hour walk up the watercourse – through a canyon initially, then a wider valley. The rock was constantly changing – some sections very much reminded us of Goblin Valley in Utah.

The caves themselves were probably a little underwhelming (if that was all you were going for) but combined with the rest of the walk it was a well worthwhile trip.

We were dropped off back in Seclantás at 1:30pm, so we had lunch in the plaza (the remains of our packed breakfast), before hitting the road again for Cachi.

Even though it was only another hour of driving it was twisty and hot, and I was very glad to stop when we got to Cachi. Once we’d checked in we wandered around the village trying to find an open ice cream shop – we were eventually successful.

There was one winery within easy walking distance from town, though from the reviews we weren’t sure if it was going to be open. It was quite the revelation – going from a dusty street front, to walk through to a lovely terrace with stunning views of the surrounding mountains. We had a lovely relaxing time here.

The next day we had another scenic drive – this time Ruta 33 through Parque Nacional Los Cardones (‘The Giant Cactus National Park’). It was spectacular – we did four very short walks, and stopped at a few lookouts.

We’d been climbing as we drove and made it up to 3,400m before needing to descend back to Salta at 1,200m. The road down was full of switchbacks, though fortunately quite wide so not the same nervousness as some other roads we’d driven!

We got into Salta (city) mid-afternoon. We only had that afternoon/evening so walked across town (~3.5km) to the cable car. We were close to closing time so didn’t spend too much time at the top.

While Salta hadn’t been on our original itinerary we enjoyed our last minute trip here. It would have been better to have come in the dry (& cooler) season, so that we weren’t constantly watching the forecast nervously for any rain. It felt a fair bit cheaper travelling here compared to the other parts of Argentina we visited. It did feel somewhat ironic that we were only a day’s bus travel away from San Pedro de Atacama where we had been 2 months earlier – if this had been part of the original plan there would have been better ways to incorporate it!

With Christmas almost upon us it was time to head to one of the biggest tourist towns in Argentina – Puerto Iguazu.