New Tour

Northwest Argentina by Bicycle

Price from
US$ 4,995
Duration
9 Days / 8 Nights
Distance
509 km
Tour Code
ARG-NWA
Next departure
17-Jan-2027
Number of Cycling Days8
Average Distance Per Day: 72
0
150 Km
Average Climbing Per Day: 626
0
2,250 m
Accommodation
Basic
5 Star
Total Cycling Distance509 kilometres
AccommodationIncluded
Bike HireMountain Bike: US$ 765
Single SupplementUS$ 620

About this Cycle Tour

You can ride straight across a salt flat here. You can also drink some of the world's highest-grown wine, pass weavers working at roadside looms, and climb from cactus desert into dripping cloud forest, all in one week. This is northwest Argentina, the country's old Andean heartland, ridden from colonial Salta down the Calchaquí Valley and up onto the Puna.

From Salta we transfer up to the pass at Piedra del Molino and let the bikes run down through Parque Nacional Los Cardones, a forest of candelabra cacti, into the valley town of Cachi. The next days follow Ruta 40 south past roadside weavers at their looms and the tilted rock fins of the Quebrada de las Flechas to Cafayate, where vineyards grow in sandy desert soil high above sea level. We ride back north through the Quebrada de las Conchas, a gorge of red sandstone the river has carved into shapes locals have named one by one. The final days climb into the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a UNESCO valley of mineral-streaked hills, before the road tops out on the Puna and drops us onto Salinas Grandes to ride across the salt itself. We sleep in converted colonial houses and haciendas with thick adobe walls, the kind of places that hold the day's heat into the evening.

Join us on this point-to-point ride through the painted valleys and salt deserts of northwest Argentina.

Book Your Cycling Holiday

Itinerary

Day 1

We meet in Salta, a colonial city in a green Andean valley, for a briefing and a bike fit, then ride the old streets around its pink cathedral and arcaded plazas before the week begins.

Day 2

We start high, at a mountain pass, and ride a long descent through Parque Nacional Los Cardones, a forest of giant cardón cacti, down to Cachi, a whitewashed town of cobbled streets under snow-capped peaks.

Day 3

We roll south along the valley floor on Ruta 40, built over an ancient indigenous road, through the weaving village of Seclantás, where poncho makers work at their looms in open doorways, to the 17th-century Hacienda de Molinos.

Day 4

We ride south on gravel through canyon country to the Quebrada de las Flechas, a corridor of wind-sculpted rock fins tilted at sharp angles, then the valley widens and the first vineyards of Cafayate appear on the long, warm run into town.

Day 5

A day in the wine country around Cafayate: we ride out through desert vineyards to the pre-Inca hillfort of Quilmes, the largest settlement in old Argentina, and lunch at a winery working the land biodynamically at altitude.

Day 6

We ride back toward Salta through the Quebrada de las Conchas, where the river has cut a long gallery of red sandstone, formation after named formation, with a naturalist along to explain the rock.

Day 7

A morning ride north through the Yungas cloud forest above La Caldera gives way to the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a UNESCO valley of painted hillsides and pre-Inca ruins, where we settle in at Tilcara and climb to the fortress of Pucará de Tilcara.

Day 8

The day's reward is Salinas Grandes: we ride out across the salt itself, a blinding white flat with no landmark and no sound but the wind, reached by driving up the switchbacks of the Cuesta de Lipán onto the Puna.

Day 9

The morning is free before transfers leave for Jujuy or Salta airport and onward flights. Argentina has plenty more to offer, from Buenos Aires to the glaciers and peaks of Patagonia. Get in touch if you would like to extend your trip.

Elevation Profiles

Day 2 - Salta → Cachi Ride 58km. +204m / -1,170m.
Day 2 - Salta → Cachi Ride 58km. +204m / -1,170m.

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