Day 8 - 30 Sep Exploring Salta region, northern Argentina

Photo above - at a winery in Cafayate.

Early start to drive out into the Salta region

Today we are doing a 250 mile round trip to the south west of Salta, to the wine region of Cafayate. We left early at 7am, and the weather looked to be an improvement on yesterday with mid 20C expected, and hopefully no rain.

Salta region is very agricultural, growing tobacco, citrus fruits, vegetables, sugar cane, and also farming livestock. The landscapes around Northern Argentina include rust-red geological formations carved out of massive gorges, green pastures, and giant, craggy mountains.

After about half an hour, we turned on to Ruta 68, which will take us to Cafayete. At first the route was flat and rural. The road is a single carriageway, and is actually quite rough and poor quality. We passed through several police checkpoints but we're not stopped, and loads of dry river beds waiting for the rainy season to fill them with water.

Mountains and weather sculptured red rock

Then after about an hour and a quarter, the mountains started closing in and the road became more undulating. We did pass few a few rural villages, that appeared to be quite poor. A few ranches started appearing.

Suddenly we were passing through the forested mountains, and the distinctive red rock was visible everywhere. As we headed higher, the slopes changed from the forest cover changed to more sparse vegetation, and thousands of tall cacti.

Then we started to pass through the 'Quebrada de las Conchas' (Shell Gorge), where water and wind have carved amazing shapes such as The Amphitheatre, the Devil's Gorge and the Titanic out of the rock. The road continued meandering through the red rock mountains. Often it resembled Arizona in the US. We stopped at Three Crosses viewpoint, where there were some great views, and we could see some condors circling in the distance.

Winery and food

We arrived into Cafayate (1683m) just before lunchtime, and stopped at a winery surrounded by high mountains, to do some wine tasting. Argentina's main white wine, a so called high altitude wine called Torrontes, is famous in this region. Afterwards we made our way to a second winery for some food.

Return to Salta

We then started heading back to Salta. On the way we stopped in the gorge to look at the rock formations of Devil's Gorge and The Ampitheater. We finally got back to the hotel at about 8pm.

Tomorrow, we drive north into another coloured mountain range to a small village located beneath Seven Coloured Hill, and will visit the Salinas Grandes salt flats.