5 days in Salta Jujuy

We spent 5 nights in salta and joined 4 day tours: humahuaca with hornocal (Jujuy), cafayate (Salta), Salinas grandes (Jujuy), and cachi (Salta). Each day we were picked up by Parada Norte guide from our hotel around 7am and got back around 8-9pm. They were long days, 500km on the first day and around 350km the other days. I must say, salta and jujuy nature diverse beautify lived up to the hype.

I didn’t do much research before hand other than hearing from many Argentinian friends that north of Argentina is very different and beautiful. During my 13 years in Argentina, I’ve never been to the north except the Iguazu falls. So I was excited to explore with the family. I first thought we would do a road trip but then decided to take the easy way to join the group tours. I’m so glad we went on this road. I can’t imagine husband driving over 12 hrs a day in those roads, many times above 4000 meters height mountains and single track. I am also surprised by the quality of tour guides we had, all different styles and all amazing! Oh the tour came out very affordable. I paid 450 USD for 4 people for 4 days. I think we got a good deal as we had great time, despite how exhausted we ended up every day.

Highlight of our tours.

Day 1 Humahuaca with ornocal. First stop at Punamarca for 7 colors mountain and local tortilla which was super filling and tasty.

We reach 4300 meters for the Hornocal with 14 colors mountain in front. The attitude immediately affected Lizzy.

as soon as we came down the mountains she was back to her silly self. We stopped at the paleta de pintor for photo.

Day 2 was Cafayate as the end destination, a small town where we had lunch and free time. But the destination is not the point, the journey there was the highlight as we stopped at many beautiful nature sights

The devil throat

The amphitheater

The star war like scene

The sinking titanic. As we were reaching there, our driver/guide played the titanic song… so themed!

The area had over 50 wineries and we visited one and tried out

Cactus was ubiquitous but I didn’t appreciate them much that day. Only on the last day we leaned about it

Lunch spot with our fellow travelers

Northern Argentina food was different than Buenos Aires. Goat and llama meat was part of daily meals like this cazuela de Cabrito (young goat meat stew). Lizzy’s face tells all

Fortunately they had salad for me

The second day was the only day that we returned hotel during day time (7pm) and we walked around a bit. The downtown is very colonial and busy.

Day 3 we started at Purmamarca, same 7 colors mountain as day 1 as background

then the road up which got me a bit dizzy

the reward was Salinas Grandes, an immense salt lake on top of the mountain that is 4100 meters high. There were 3 sites for photo taking, the pool

the dinosaur

and the Salinas grande sign. We left super happy with this tour as it was our first salt lake experience.

day 4 was Cachi, another small town, passing through tropical forest and the cactus park.

the road up was slow and steep, I got a bit nervous but we felt confident with the driver.

the peak attitude at 4100 where we got goat cheese and llama salami

we saw many guanaco on the wild. It was by then that Lizzy started to feel belly pain (probably because of the salami and cheese she tried)

finally arrived at the cactus park, the highlight of this tour (or we thought). We learned that to reproduce this type of cactus, the insemination happens in the belly of a special bird, once inseminated, its poop needs to be place in a area with a plant that protects it from the wind, to be able to grow. For a 2 meter cactus, it takes 700 years!

at cachi, we had lunch, the usual 2 hrs break for lunch, rest, before return back to Salta.

the way back was eventful. First, the fog made the road invisible (to us) when we were on the top of the mountain, then on the way down, winding road that was quite steep and narrow, it started to rain. I had to close my eyes not to look down. Then when we finally got to the bottom of the mountain, after maybe 20 min drive, we stopped, for hours!!! Why? because the rain flooded the bridge and no car could pass. Lizzy belly pain was back, and we had no timeline for when we will be able to continue the drive (still an hour away from Salta downtown). I bought bread, cookies and water, in case we need to stay overnight on the bus. Fortunately by 8:30pm, we started moving again and finally got to the hotel around 10pm. Wooo!!! that was close to scary.

day 5, our flight was 1pm. After 4 days of not running, I felt like a hamster. I really needed to run. I had no idea where to nor whether it’s safe. I asked the receptionist, she suggested the cerro and I went out planning for 3 miles jog. As I jogged, I saw a rather old lady jogging very slowly toward a mountain so I followed her. It turned out to be the mountain where the cable car ends for the panoramic view of the city. It was 2 miles up and I thought to run as much as I felt like and return. Before I knew it, it was already the top, and I was rewarded with this amazing view and completed 10 miles for the day. What a great way to end this segment of the trip.

Next stop: Iguazu falls.