New Tour

Northwest Argentina by Bicycle

Day 1: Meet in Salta

We meet in Salta in the afternoon for a briefing on the week ahead and a bike fit, then take a gentle ride through the centre to loosen the legs before the riding starts in earnest. Salta sits in a green Andean valley, and its colonial core still holds its shape: a pink cathedral, the old cabildo, arcaded fronts in ochre and white, and peñas where folk music runs late into the night. Dinner tonight is on your own among the city's restaurants, some of the best in the north. We recommend arriving in Salta a day early, so you are rested and ready to be picked up in the morning. Please let us know if you need assistance with airport transfers or pre-tour hotel bookings.

Inkai (or similar)
Dinner

Day 2: Salta → Cachi

We leave Salta by van and climb west into the mountains, the tarmac giving way to switchbacks as the green valley falls behind. The ride starts at the pass of Piedra del Molino, 3,360 metres above sea level, and from here the road runs downhill for most of the day. It drops through Parque Nacional Los Cardones, where cardón cacti stand three to five metres tall in ranks across the hillsides, their candelabra arms throwing long shadows over the road. The gradient stays in our favour as the valley opens and the first adobe villages appear. Cachi waits at the bottom: cobbled streets, a whitewashed church on a shaded plaza, and snow on the peaks behind. After we settle in there is time to walk the village before dinner together.

Hostería de Cachi (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 58km
+204m
-1170m

Day 3: Cachi → Molinos

Today we ride Ruta 40, the road that runs the length of Argentina from Patagonia to the Bolivian border, here laid over an old indigenous trading path. This stretch follows the Calchaquí Valley floor in long, easy curves between walls of banded rock, the river on one side and vines climbing the lower slopes on the other. It is a day to look around rather than push. At Seclantás we turn onto the Camino de los Artesanos, where families of poncho weavers work handlooms set up in their doorways, patterns building row by row in natural-dyed wool. The road carries on to Molinos and a 17th-century colonial hacienda with a cobbled courtyard and a church weathered by three centuries of Andean sun, where we stop for lunch. If there is energy left in the afternoon, the bodega at Colomé and its James Turrell light museum are worth the detour.

Hacienda de Molinos (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 53km
+460m
-759m

Day 4: Molinos → Cafayate

This is the longest day of the tour, and it earns its length. We leave Molinos on back roads through stone-walled farms and dry riverbeds, then enter the canyon country between the upper and lower valley. The Quebrada de las Flechas is the centrepiece: a long corridor of sandstone fins and blades, folded and tilted upward until they point at the sky like rows of arrowheads. The light changes them by the hour, and there is every reason to stop often. Beyond the quebrada the valley widens, the surface improves, and the air warms as the desert gives way to the first vines of Cafayate. Anyone who would rather ride less can join partway, at Angastaco, and take the best of the route from there into town, with the van close by throughout. Cafayate sits in a bowl of mountains, its streets lined with bodegas and small restaurants. We break for lunch on the road, and the afternoon is free, with dinner on your own in town.

Killa Cafayate (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 118km
+861m
-1279m

Day 5: Cafayate → Quilmes Ruins → Cafayate

After yesterday's long stage, today is gentler and loops back to Cafayate, so there is no distant goal to chase. The road south runs through one of South America's strangest wine landscapes: low vines planted in sandy desert soil well above sea level, fed by snowmelt and burned by hard ultraviolet light, which together give the aromatic white Torrontés and the dark Malbecs that made Cafayate's name. We ride as far as Tolombón, then transfer the short distance to the ruins of Quilmes, a fortified city built into the hillside by people who held out against Spanish conquest for more than a century. A walk through the terraced walls traces a community that once numbered in the thousands. We break for lunch at a winery working biodynamically at altitude. The afternoon back in Cafayate is yours for the market, a bodega, or a shaded table on the plaza, and dinner is on your own in town.

Killa Cafayate (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 54km
+390m
-166m

Day 6: Cafayate → Salta

We leave Cafayate heading northeast, and the Quebrada de las Conchas begins almost straight away. The canyon walls rise on both sides in bands of terracotta, rust, and deep red, the colour shifting as the road bends through the rock. The river keeps pace for much of the way, and we pass formations that locals have named over generations: the natural amphitheatre of El Anfiteatro, the toad of El Sapo, the spires of Los Castillos. A naturalist rides with us today to explain the geology, linking the colours and shapes to the seabeds and lakebeds that were folded and lifted here over millions of years. We stop for a regional lunch midway, then take the van for the last stretch into Salta. Salta feels lively after the quiet of the valley, and the evening is free for dinner out.

Inkai (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 84km
+779m
-1218m

Day 7: Salta → Tilcara

We drive east to La Caldera, a colonial town on the old Camino Real that once linked Lima to Buenos Aires, and start riding there. The route climbs north through the Yungas, a subtropical cloud forest folded into the eastern slope of the Andes, where the air turns humid and the roadside shifts from ferns and orchids to bamboo and hanging moss. It is a different world from the dry valleys behind us. From the forest we transfer north into the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a long, narrow valley listed by UNESCO for its layered pre-Inca, Inca, and colonial past. The hillsides here run with mineral colour, sharpest in the afternoon light. We check in at Tilcara, then visit the Pucará de Tilcara, a hilltop fortress set above the valley. Dinner is on your own among the town's small restaurants.

Patio Alto (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch
Ride 68km
+1340m
-1103m

Day 8: Tilcara → Salinas Grandes → Tilcara

The day starts with a drive up the Cuesta de Lipán, twenty-five switchbacks stacked through hillsides striped in ochre and violet, topping out at a pass 4,170 metres above sea level. The change at the top is total: the mountains fall away and the Puna spreads flat and treeless to every horizon. We unload here and ride down onto Salinas Grandes, one of the largest salt flats in South America. Cycling across the salt is one of the strangest stretches of the whole trip, the crust cracked into hexagons underfoot, no gradient and no landmark, only wind and the sound of the tyres. We stop for lunch at a small restaurant run by the local community beside the flat. The ride finishes at San Francisco de Alfarcito, and from there we drive back down to Tilcara, where a farewell dinner of Andean cooking and altitude wine closes the riding.

Patio Alto (or similar)
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Ride 73km
+349m
-1025m

Day 9: Jujuy/Salta departure

There is time for a last walk through Tilcara before the transfers leave for the airport at Jujuy, around an hour and three quarters away, for midday flights to Buenos Aires, or to Salta for early-afternoon departures. We can drop anyone crossing into Chile for San Pedro de Atacama at Purmamarca, to pick up the border bus. Argentina rewards a longer stay. Further up the Quebrada de Humahuaca, the town of Humahuaca and the fourteen-colour ridge of the Hornocal make a striking day out. Buenos Aires is worth several days for its food, tango, and grand avenues. Further south, Patagonia is one of the great wilderness regions on earth, with the Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate and the peaks of El Chaltén. Please let us know if you need assistance with airport transfers or post-tour hotel bookings, as these are not included in the main price. We are happy to help you organise these final details for your journey home or an extended stay in Argentina.

Breakfast

Disclaimer: The adventure cycling tours we operate often go beyond the beaten track, and the countries where we ride are not always predictable. Due to these reasons, it is occasionally necessary to reroute or update itineraries. Our guarantee is that we will not change a trip unless for safety or to improve it. Our listed hotels are always accurate at the time of writing, but should we have to change any hotel, it will always be for a similar or better one.