From the Patagonian Mountains to the Deserts of Salta

As I have mentioned elsewhere, Argentina is really fucking big. In the past month alone we have taken four separate bus rides exceeding 18 hours in length as we slowly move around the vast area that this country covers.

Many of the fellow travellers we have met along the way have questioned why we haven’t taken advantage of flights between destinations and, whilst it is nice to claim to be doing it solely for environmental reasons, financial motivations have also played a considerable factor. If booked in advance the flights can sometimes be cheaper than the far more time consuming bus journeys, however when booking only a day or two in advance that is not the case.

We are well-adapted to these initially dreaded journeys and always well-prepared with both food and entertainment. Books, podcasts and movies are essential with the views from the window providing little to peak one's interest. For hours at a time the landscape seems to be stuck in a loop, remaining flat and barren for endless miles.

Yet, these dull interludes are more than worth it for the spectacular locations that the journeys lead to. I wrote that I thought the penguin colony we visited on our first stop of this trip would be very difficult to beat and yet I have had my breath taken away similarly multiple times since.

Our very next destination after Puerto Madryn was Bariloche, a popular city for visiting the famous Patagonian mountains from. I am a big fan of hiking and have experienced some incredible mountain vistas across Europe over the past few years so whilst I expected Patagonia to be impressive, I was not close to anticipating its beauty.

In my experiences in Europe often you must hike for four or five hours to be rewarded by admittedly wonderful views; that was not the case here. Whilst there are, of course, far larger hikes for those who enjoy the challenge as much as the reward, substantial effort is not required to reach phenomenal views. At Cerro Campanario and Cerro Llao Llao walks of 30 and 90 minutes respectively lead to breathtaking panoramic vistas that reach across the Chilean border.

Like many of the places I will mention here, it is almost impossible to find the appropriate words to do justice to their beauty. For that reason I will barely try and direct you to the photos below. The perfectly blue water of the lakes weave between the smaller tree covered peaks; the greens and blue contrasting magnificently with the dominating grey-ish mountain ranges that rise up behind them.

These sites are not just for admiring, but also to be engaged with and enjoyed. For us that was an experience we had at the next town along, San Martin de los Andes. A two-hour or so hike into native Mapuche territory - to whom you must pay a small fee (150 pesos) to enter their land - with many more beautiful viewpoints along the way led us to the appropriately named ‘Playa Bonita’.

Perfectly clear water laps up onto a small pebbled beach, populated by only the few willing to make the effort to hike there. When one steps into the water the 360 degree views of mountain peaks make an unsuccessful attempt to distract you from the freezing temperatures, but it is nevertheless a fairytale-like location.

From Patagonia we headed north, first making a stop in the famous wine-making region of Mendoza - which I may write about another time - before moving on further to the provinces of Salta and Jujuy. Whilst still close to the Chilean border and the Andes, the environment could hardly be more different than in Patagonia.

Salta itself is a very nice, small city. The main square is a hub of activity with musicians and dancers constantly performing and a generally pleasant and relaxed atmosphere. However, the city’s primary function is as a base for the magnificent attractions that lie around it, of which we saw only a few.

The Seven-Striped hills near the beautiful town of Purmamarca offer evidence of nature's creativity. The Salinas Grandes that lie a few hours north are a blindingly (literally, sunglasses are highly recommended) white plateau that disappears into the distant mountains. The ‘Garganta del Diablo’ (Devil’s Throat) is almost intimidating in proving how small and insignificant we are.

These attractions are all magnificent in their own right and entirely deserving of their reputations as ‘must-see’ places. Yet somehow, for me, the thing that impressed me the most as we travelled across these two provinces was the views from the bus. I may have started this post by describing the vast and barren flat land of much of Argentina; Jujuy nor Salta suffer from this issue.

The desert landscape seems almost man-made in that some of the shapes and formations seem impossible to be formed only by the forces of the weather.  And yet, simultaneously, the landscape is impossibly natural in the sense that mankind could never replicate the beauty, the colours, or the size of its features.

From frogs to penguins, and castles to the sinking titanic, people find almost anything they desire amongst the rocky landscape; I prefer not to find comparisons in the infinite range of shaped and sized rocks of various colours and simply admire them for what they are. The clay coloured rocks, which litter the desert, range in hue, some as if the black-and-white filter has been turned up high, others a deep red with the saturation filter maxed-out, and everything in between.

Cacti of all shapes and sizes litter the land as if sprinkled like glitter. Sometimes clumped together in large groups, others isolated and alone, impossibly clinging to steep, rocky cliff fronts.

I have never visited a country with so much diversity in its environment; from deserts to mountains, and penguin colonies to waterfalls - those at Iguazu will mark the last stop of this adventure before crossing the border into Brazil. Each is magnificent in its own right and that each of these places are within the borders of one country is quite simply greedy and unfair. I knew little about Argentina before arriving; now, with my own adventures drawing to a close, I would recommend it to anyone for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Posted: 21/02/2022

Written by: Tom Taylor (@tomtayloor)