Salta and around

Salta is the capital of the same called province in the Northwest of Argentina. The capital is a nice and relatively quite 450,000 inhabitants city. You'll find beautiful antique churches like Iglesia San Francisco, green parks and very nice cafes in the city centre. But especially the landscape around Salta is very spectacular.

From Salta you can go with the Tren de los nubles, a train going to very high altidue cities like de San Antonio de los cobres in the Andes. On its highest point the train reaches an altitude of about 4200 meters. The train was closed for reparations until August 2008. But you can almost make the same tour by car. You pass a lot of viaducts and of course cactuses, which only grow between 1,800 and 3,300m. The landscape in those altitudes is clearly amazing.



The Andes, small mountain villages and canyons give an impressive scenery.

Also in the West of Salta there are the Salinas Grandes, the 3rd biggest Salt Desert in South America. Almost as far as you can look, you only see white. And the white salty stones reflect the sun so strongly, that is almost impossible to stand there without sunglasses. Hard working guys are digging for the salt to get a few Pesos for a ton of it.

Southern to Salta you can to Cafayate. The winding road there leads through canyons and dry mountains, also very impressive.