When visiting Argentina, one shouldn’t miss out on the beautiful north of this country. Endless roads, breathtaking rock formations and landscapes that alternate every five minutes, are some of the things you can expect to find when road tripping through this part of the country that is such a nice little change of scene from the capital of Buenos Aires.
Salta can easily be reached within 2 hours flying from BA, and Andes Líneas Aéreas offer cheap flights from €50-100. The airport lies only 20 minutes from the center and a taxi shouldn’t cost more than $150 [3,50€] pesos. We decided to rent a car from one of the many agencies on Buenos Aires street to drive down to Cafayate ourselves, which I would definitely recommend over doing an organized bus trip. Although the streets are far from well maintained and actual concrete is something you won’t encounter too often, driving down the endless streets with 30km/h yourself is most definitely part of an adventure that you shouldn’t miss out on. Moreover, it’s just so much nicer to go at your own pace, and decide for yourself where you would like to stop for an hour-long photoshoot, instead of being rushed off the bus with the usual “be-back-in-10”-call by the driver.
On the way down, our first stop was Cachi, a little town about halfway between Salta and Cafayate. The place itself doesn’t offer much, but after 4 hours of driving and taking pictures, having some delicious ice cream before hitting the road again, gave us the energy to continue the last 4 hours to Cafayate. Tired but happy after a long day of road-trippin’, we finally arrived to the city at night and were only able to quickly grab some food and then regain our strength at the Casa Arbol Hostel – lucky for us, Cafayate doesn’t offer much of a nightlife anyway. The next morning, we decided to squeeze in a little hike before planting ourselves in our little Chevrolet Classic again for the rest of the day. Hiking to the Cascadas del Rio Colorado was definitely worth it. Although the weather was not as good as we had hoped, even with grey skies, the valley of the waterfalls looked absolutely beautiful, and we had a great time with our guide Wilson, who climbed the rocks and jumped over the rapids like it was nothing. You can take your car until the bottom of the valley, which is takes about 7 minutes from the city center, and park it there for a fee of €1. On your way up, you’ll be stopped several times by all these professional guides who offer you the best experience ever by guiding you up the waterfalls, and who’ll sit down in your backseat quicker than you’ll notice, if you don’t drive away fast enough. Although we also ended up with a guide, and would definitely recommend it, since some parts of the track are pretty hard to find, and sometimes even hard to manage, we waited until the last minute to finally say yes to one of the guys. And even then, we hadn’t even really said yes. But somehow, Wilson snuck his way into our group and quick as a wink, he led us to the first three of the seven waterfalls and quickly found himself in the role of our personal photographer.
Back down, we started driving back to Salta on Route 68 through the famous valley of Quebrada de las conchas. Although this route is the more famous one in comparison to the one we took the day before, and this one offers a lot of well-known stops with interesting rock formations, such as “the obelisk”, “devil’s throat”, and the “amphitheatre”, we personally liked our individual, less touristy route from the previous day a little better. We have to admit that route 68 did offer the better roads indeed. But being stuck behind a bus, packed with 60 senior citizens, who decided for one of those tours that we had dreaded so much, kind of took away some of the adventure vibe that we had felt when driving down those endless dirt roads, all by ourselves, with no signal on our phones, and only our instincts to trust.
Our trip in a nutshell:
Recommendable hostel in Salta: Backpacker’s Suites & Bar (€7)
- Recommendable hostel in Cafayate: Casa Arbol (€9)
- Activa rent a car: €143 for 2 days (€93 car rental económico + €50 for gas for 550km); choose from one of the countless agencies on Buenos Aires between Avenida San Martín and Plaza 9 de Julio
- Beautiful scenery between Salta & Cachi; pack food and lots of water for a picnic along the way; long dirt road parts of the way where you can only ride 30km/h; bring a lot of time, but it’ll definitely be worth it
- The landscapes of the Quebrada de la Concha/Cafayate are also very beautiful but a bit more touristy; a big plus: Route 68 (Cafayate to Salta) is completely made of concrete and therefore, much easier and quicker to drive on
- Hike up to at least one of the waterfalls of the Cascadas del Rio Colorado in Cafayate; seeing the first 3 took us around 2 hours roundtrip; we paid the guide $200 [4,70€] pesos
- Travel times (incl. picture and lunch breaks): Salta – Cachi (4:30h); Cachi – Cafayate (4h); Cafayate – Salta (5h)
- hiking up the San Bernardo mountain in Salta was a nice morning workout, but the view is not really worth it – unfortunately, you only see a bunch of houses from above, and much less of the valley around the city
lenacatherine 