What is the Tren a las Nubes?

A scenic railway (sometimes combined with a bus segment depending on route conditions) climbing from Salta into the high Andes, crossing dramatic viaducts including the Polvorilla Viaduct, and reaching an altitude above 4,000 metres.

What wine does Cafayate produce?

Torrontés, Argentina's signature aromatic white grape, alongside high-altitude reds — the country's second major wine region after Mendoza, with a more intimate, less commercial bodega scene.

How do I get from Salta to Cafayate?

By road through the Quebrada de las Conchas, a roughly three-hour scenic drive past striking red-rock formations including the Garganta del Diablo and the Anfiteatro, worth treating as a destination rather than just a route.

Argentina · Americas

Salta

Code:A
Type:province

Introduction

Salta, in Argentina's Andean Northwest, pairs one of the country's most handsome colonial cities with two genuinely dramatic landscapes: the high-altitude Tren a las Nubes railway and the red-rock wine canyons around Cafayate — a region with a distinctly different character from the pampas or Patagonia.

Overview

Salta city, nicknamed “la Linda” (“the Pretty One”) for its well-preserved Spanish colonial architecture, is the Northwest's natural base — a walkable centre of whitewashed churches, a handsome main plaza, and peñas (folk-music venues) where Andean and gaucho musical traditions are performed live most nights. From the city, the Tren a las Nubes (“Train to the Clouds”) climbs into the surrounding highlands, crossing a series of dramatic curved viaducts — most famously the Polvorilla Viaduct — en route to an altitude above 4,000 metres, one of the highest passenger rail routes in the world when it first opened. South of the city, the Valles Calchaquíes wine valleys around Cafayate sit among red-rock canyon formations sculpted by wind and water, and produce Argentina's other great wine style alongside Mendoza's Malbec: Torrontés, a distinctively aromatic white grape that has found its best expression at this altitude. The drive south from Salta to Cafayate through the Quebrada de las Conchas gorge, with rock formations including the Garganta del Diablo and the Anfiteatro (an amphitheatre-shaped canyon with genuine natural acoustics), is a destination in itself. Note that the Hill of Seven Colours and Purmamarca, often mentioned alongside Salta, actually sit across the provincial line in neighbouring Jujuy.

Discover Salta

Salta's colonial centre — the cathedral, the Cabildo (colonial town hall, now a museum), and the main plaza framed by low, whitewashed buildings — is compact and genuinely handsome, and its peñas give visitors an accessible, live way into Andean folk music and gaucho culture most evenings of the week. The city's most famous excursion, the Tren a las Nubes, departs (seasonally, and sometimes as a bus-and-train combination depending on the route's condition) for a spectacular climb through zigzagging switchbacks and the Polvorilla Viaduct, a curved bridge nearly 64 metres above the ravine floor, into thin, high-altitude Andean landscape that looks like nowhere else in Argentina.

Ways to Experience This Destination

Colonial City & Folk Music

Salta's whitewashed colonial centre and its peñas, live venues for Andean and gaucho folk music.

The Train to the Clouds

The Tren a las Nubes climbs past the Polvorilla Viaduct into high Andean landscape above 4,000 metres.

Cafayate Wine Country

Torrontés white wine amid the red-rock canyons of the Valles Calchaquíes and the Quebrada de las Conchas.

Frequently asked questions

No — the Hill of Seven Colours and the town of Purmamarca sit in neighbouring Jujuy province, not Salta, though the two are often grouped together in general Northwest itineraries and are an easy extension from Salta city.

Visaja keeps this page's contact details and visa guidance under continuous review — still, requirements can change at short notice, so confirm the essentials with the mission or the official government portal before you travel.