From Salta Cachi and Los Cardones National Park Tour

Quebrada de Escoipe: the green gorge out of Salta

Leaving Salta westwards, the road follows the Lerma Valley through farmland and tobacco fields before entering the Quebrada de Escoipe, a narrow gorge carved by the Escoipe River into red and green hillsides. This part of the route is surprisingly lush: summer rains feed a cloud forest of ferns, mosses and flowering shrubs that clings to the slopes, in strong contrast to the dry plateau that comes later. The guide uses this stretch to explain how the Salta to Cachi road climbs through several different ecosystems in less than 160 kilometres.

The Escoipe Gorge is the first of the day's landscapes and takes roughly an hour to drive. Small hamlets, a chapel or two and roadside stalls selling goat's cheese appear between the bends, and condors are sometimes spotted above the cliffs. It is a stretch for watching from the window and for short photo stops before the serious climb begins at the foot of the Cuesta del Obispo.

Cuesta del Obispo: the Bishop's Slope

The Cuesta del Obispo is a mountain road of about 20 kilometres that zigzags up the eastern wall of the Andes from roughly 1,900 to 3,350 metres. Its name comes from a bishop of the colonial era who was forced to spend a night on the slope while crossing to the Calchaquí Valley. The road, partly gravel, is cut into the hillside in a long series of hairpin bends, and from each one the view back down the valley grows wider until, near the top, the whole gorge lies spread below in shades of green and ochre.

The highest point is the Piedra del Molino pass, marked by a millstone abandoned centuries ago and a small chapel. Our minibus makes photo stops on the way up, and the Cuesta del Obispo viewpoint at the top is the best place to see the clouds roll in from the east below your feet. Morning is the right time to drive it, when the air is clear; by afternoon the cloud often fills the valley.

Los Cardones National Park and the Recta del Tin Tin

Los Cardones National Park protects about 65,000 hectares of high plateau between 2,700 and 5,000 metres, created in 1996 to preserve the cardón, a columnar cactus that can reach several metres in height and live for centuries, growing only a few centimetres a year. The cacti stand in their thousands across the Tin Tin plain, some with arms raised like candelabra, with the snow-covered Nevado de Cachi on the horizon. Guanacos, foxes and condors live here, and fossils of dinosaur footprints have been found in the park's rocks.

The road through the park is the Recta del Tin Tin, a straight line of about 19 kilometres laid along the course of an old Inca road, which is a famous photo stop in itself. Entry to Los Cardones National Park is free, and the tour stops in the middle of the plain so you can walk among the cacti for a few minutes. Visiting the park is the highlight of the Salta to Cachi excursion for many travellers and the most photographed landscape of the day.

Cachi: colonial village of the Calchaquí Valley

Cachi lies at about 2,280 metres in the Calchaquí Valley, where the Calchaquí and Cachi rivers meet beneath the Nevado de Cachi, a massif whose highest peak rises to about 6,380 metres. The village was founded in the colonial period on the site of a Diaguita settlement and keeps its original grid of cobbled streets, white adobe houses with carved wooden doors and a shaded main square. The parish church of San José, built in the eighteenth century, has a ceiling and confessionals made of cactus wood, and the small archaeological museum beside the square displays finds from the valley's pre-Hispanic cultures.

The tour gives you free time in Cachi for lunch at your own expense and a walk: the square, the church, the museum and the viewpoint by the cemetery on the hill above the village all fit comfortably into the stop. Is Cachi worth visiting? Its calm, its altitude light and its mountain backdrop make it the most rewarding village of the Calchaquí Valleys tour and a place many travellers wish they could stay longer.

The spice grocers of the valley

The Calchaquí Valley around Cachi is one of Argentina's main growing areas for pimentón, the sweet paprika made from red peppers that are harvested in autumn and laid out to dry in the sun on vast red carpets beside the road. Alongside paprika, the small grocers of the area sell cumin, oregano, aniseed, dried herbs for infusions, nuts and jams produced on local farms, with the scent of the shop announcing itself before you step inside.

The tour includes a stop at one of these local spice grocers on the way back toward Salta, a simple and genuine stop where you can buy a packet of paprika or herbs to take hotel. It is a short visit of about 15 minutes and there is no obligation to buy; the guide explains how the peppers are grown and dried and what each spice is used for in the regional cooking of northern Argentina.