After returning my rental car and spending one obligatory night in Córdoba, I jumped on a plane to Argentina’s far northwest. I’ll be starting in the city of Salta, but this post will be about all of Salta Province. It looked like the weather was going to be quite nice for my stay, 70°’s mostly, but on my main exploration day the thermometer jumped all the way up to 98°! Yowza! It was a sweaty day.

I also think I found my first Argentinian city without a monument to General Jose de San Martín. The main plaza in Salta is Plaza 9 de Julio and the big monument is dedicated to General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales. It seems Salta is all about the local heroes.

On the plaza is Salta’s Cabildo and a really good local history museum. They had a lot of local native artifacts and some interesting pieces of Argentinian independence history. I liked the vest of Manuel Belgrano, founding father and creator of Argentina’s flag.

General Arenales gets the main plaza, but the real hero in these parts is actually General Martín Miguel de Güemes. He grew up in Salta and led a gaucho militia in these parts against the Spanish. Eventually he became Salta Province’s first elected governor, that is, without any interference or influence from Buenos Aires.

No doubt you noticed that big hill behind the general. That’s Cerro San Bernardo and yes, I climbed all the way to the top in 98° heat. I gotta do what I gotta do. Conveniently, they built a thousand steps of doom to get me there, or as they’re known here in South America, escalinatas de la perdición. The view was pretty amazing at least.

Staying with the San Bernardo theme, back in town is the Iglesia y Convento San Bernardo. It was originally built in 1586 and has served many purposes, but it’s currently a nunnery. These magnificent wooden doors seen below were carved by native craftsmen in 1762. Wow!

Just a couple of blocks away is the Basilca Menor de San Francisco. That bell tower is apparently the tallest in South America.

Back at the Plaza 9 de Julio is Salta’s cathedral. I liked the way it looked better at night, so I put that picture up. I didn’t know this going in, but I stumbled upon General Martín Miguel de Güemes tomb inside. That marble urn in front was his wife, Carmen Puch de Güemes.

Salta is also home to probably one of the most fascinating museums I’ve visited anywhere, the High Altitude Archeology Museum. Throughout the ancient Inca kingdom there are hundreds of mountain peaks where the Inca left human sacrifices to the gods, mostly in the 16th century. Due to the high altitude and super cold temps, many of the sacrifices were mummified. This museum is dedicated to the site found on Mt Llullaillaco where they found three mummies along with a lot of artifacts, shawls, jewelry and ornaments, and figurines made of gold and silver. The museum didn’t allow any pictures though, and I certainly didn’t take any. I don’t know where these came from.

The three mummies from Llullaillaca are now kept here in Salta and maintained in -20°C containers. Only one is on display at a time, so I only got to see the one called Lightening Girl. She was approximately six years old and probably from royalty. At some point in the last five hundred years or so she was struck by lightening, which burned some of her clothes and part of her face. She’s remarkably well preserved though and looks like she could’ve been placed there last week. Incredible!

Probably the most interesting piece in the museum, aside from the mummy, was the Inca hiking shoe. It was always a big mystery how they got up to these remote mountain peaks with no equipment, now at least part of that mystery is solved. They took wool and rolled it up really tight and made it several layers thick and then stitched it all together to make these super sturdy and super warm hiking shoes. I don’t know that I would want to climb mountains in them, but they worked well enough for the Inca.

That’s it for the city of Salta, but now it’s time to explore the rest of the province. I went back to the airport, rented another car, with a bigger gas tank this time, and headed south towards Cafayate. Thankfully, the slow down is over and this trip is back at full speed. This was a busy and fun week!

Route 68 between Salta and Cafayate, a region known as Quebrada de las Conchas (gorge of the shells), is the main reason for coming here and where I spent the majority of my time. I had time to make a couple of stops on the way and first up was a petroglyph site called Pinturas Rupestres. The online rumors are that the locals made this place intentionally hard to find to protect it. No signs or anything, just a hidden and inconspicuous entry on the side of the road, seen above. They don’t know who they’re dealing with.

After a short walk up the dry river bed and then a short hike up an overgrown trail, overgrown with very malicious thorn bushes, I came to a small clearing. There I found the sign they must have moved long ago and from there it was easy. Some steps of doom up to a rocky overhang and some really well preserved petroglyphs. I can understand why they want to protect this place.

So far I’ve only driven through the northern part of Quebrada de las Conchas. The scenery got more and more spectacular as I made my way further south. The mountains got bigger and more colorful and the Río Las Conchas came more into view at every turn.

I had time for two more quick stops. First was Garganta del Diablo, not to be confused with the one up in Iguazu. This was just a giant split in the mountain forming a pretty amazing little canyon. I’ve often wondered why the devil gets so many cool things named after his body parts. Weird!

And just a mile or so down the road was the Amfiteatro. Basically another big split in the mountain, but this one formed a big circular opening like a theatre. Just awesome!

I was running out of time this day so I just drove straight through to Cafayate from here. I know I’ll be exploring this whole place over the next few days, but it was very difficult driving past all this beauty. It just got better and better the whole way. Keep scrolling, we’ll get there.

Then next day I drove back north and picked up where I left off, heading south throughout the day. There are a few designated viewpoints, but honestly, I had to stop pretty frequently at random spots on the road because the views were incredible everywhere I looked.

There were also several rock features along the way. El Sapo (the toad) was an obvious one.

My first hike in the area was the Los Estratos hike. This was the only cold day I had here, and very very windy, but the hike was awesome! I don’t think I’ve ever seen mountains with such dramatic layers before.

The birds eye view up at the viewpoint gave a really interesting perspective. I want to come back when all that sand is cleared away.

Some other rock features were the obelisk and El Barco Petrolero (the oil tanker). I like to say when things are moving too slow they are moving at the speed of geology. Ironically, given current world events, this mountain is now the fastest moving oil tanker in the world. Ha!

I didn’t see a ton of arches or hoodoos, but there were a few.

I ended this day at Los Castillos. Holy Crap, this place is really beautiful! And once again, I’m glad I’m here now before the real heat sets in. Aside from the one cold day, the rest were hot and sweaty.

The viewpoints and side of the road rock features are easy, but there was also a lot of hiking to be done here. I did at least one hike per day. Next up was the Los Colorados hike. Most people just walk through the red rock near the side of the road, but the trail went back a few miles, so off I went.

The mountains are so colorful, it’s not just a bunch of crazy red rocks. There’s red, brown, black, yellow, green, it’s a kaleidoscope.

After the Colorados hike I decided to eat lunch before moving on when this grey fox crossed the road. I threw my lunch back in the car, grabbed the camera and went on the hunt. He tried to hide amongst the trees, but he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

Right across the Río Las Conchas was another short hike that I read about, Cerro Loma Negra. But first take a look at that river.

Cerro Loma Negra wasn’t an actual trail, it’s just kind of off in the desert. I’m not sure if I reached the right spot, but the rocks and the view that I did reach was more than satisfying.

The next day I took a break from the hiking, sort of, and visited the ruins of Quilmes. These people came from somewhere in Chile. They walked over the Andes Mountains, presumably to find a better life, and settled here. I didn’t expect much from what I read about the place, but it turned out to be really fascinating.

After a quick visit to the museum and a short film about the Quilmes people it was time to explore the ruins. These people built a pretty large city for themselves, including fortifications on either side to protect from invaders. These were one of the few groups that somehow managed to not get conquered by the Inca. When the Spanish arrived, however, they were done.

I was able to hike all the way up to the north fortification, then through the upper part of the ruins and over to the south fortification. The views were amazing no matter which way I looked though.

The pic below is the other side of the south fortification. Apparently that whole area is filled with more ruins waiting to be excavated. Incredible!

After climbing down from the south fortification I was congratulated by a bunch of llamas. I love llamas almost as much as I love camels, almost.

Finally, on my last day I hiked Las Conchas Gorge. There’s no sign or anything. I don’t think most people even know about it, but it was pretty spectacular.

After a short walk down a dry river bed, the hike narrows to a beautiful red rock canyon a couple of miles long. Eventually, you come out the other end to some pseudo cliffs and an amazing view of a very colorful valley. It was hot as hell this day, but what a great hike!

I enjoyed the views, drank a bunch of water and then headed back nice and slow through that beautiful canyon. This was a very busy week in a really amazing part of Argentina. And Cafayate, while not much to actually see in town, was perhaps the most pleasant town I’ve stayed in so far on this trip.

Now it’s time to drive north to my next stop. The good news is my route takes me directly back along Route 68 and through the beautiful Quebrada de las Conchas one last time. A fitting goodbye. Stay tuned…