After a short time in the north of Chile, we cross over into Argentina. We drive over the Paso de Jama, the Jama Pass, and continue to be impressed by the beautiful, barren landscape. On this pass road we have a few smaller lagoons in front of us, more impressions like on the lagoon route in Bolivia. The remarkable difference is simply that we are traveling on a very well paved road in both Chile and Argentina. Therefore, the terrain poses no challenges when visiting this lagoon route. And now it’s time to say: Bienvenidos a Argentina! – Welcome to Argentina!

North route 40 anticlockwise

Ruta 40, in Argentina all major connecting roads are simply marked with numbers, is the longest national road in Argentina. At 5,301 km, Ruta Nacional 40 is also one of the longest long-distance roads in the world. We take a section of this road in the very north of Argentina, in the federal state of Jujuy. To get to the round trip in an anticlockwise direction, we drive via Pumamarca, Tilcara, to the Rainbow Mountains of Humahuaca until we finally take the connecting road to the Quebrada de Paicone and the Ruta Nacional 40 at Abra Pampa.

Quebrada de las Señoritas

We start our round trip across Jujuy with a small canyon near Uquía. When we arrive to walk through the red sandstone canyon, we are already disillusioned. Visits are strictly only permitted with a guide. We bite the bullet and book a guide for the longer tour (about 2.5 hours). All in all, this visit costs us a good CHF 20 for a walk that we don’t think twice about doing alone and without a guide. But the visit to the Quebrada de las Señoritas was definitely worth it. We see impressive rock formations in a color triad of white, orange-red and green-grey. Due to the erosion of the weather, there are in places many small peaks, then again narrow gorges and an impressive, somewhat wider canyon of red sandstone. Really beautiful, and thanks to the guide we spend more than enough time at each highlight. After all, all group members should or want to take their souvenir photos. Despite all the fuss, we are glad to have visited the Quebrada de las Señoritas – it’s really beautiful!

Rainbow Mountains of Humahuaca

After the beautiful Rainbow Mountains in Peru, we don’t want to miss out on the equally famous Rainbow Mountains of Humahuaca in Argentina. Unfortunately, the weather is not quite accommodating. It’s raining and cloudy, we can see lightning in the background and there’s even a little bit of snow on top of the rain.
So, our visit is rather shorter than planned.

Quebrada de Paicone

On this unique stretch of highway, the Ruta Nacional 40 leads directly through a canyon in the riverbed. We have never experienced anything like it. The road is part of the national road network, not unusual for Argentina, it is a gravel road here, but the fact that the riverbed is simply leveled a little and can be driven on as part of a national road is unique. Over the next 11 km or so, we wind our way through numerous narrow sections of the canyon, as if we were a small wave in the river. Rugged cliffs rise up to the left and right, which have been shaped by all the water – just not today, fortunately. A fantastic experience! And somewhat unexpectedly, towards the end of the section, the road leads naturally up the steep canyon wall in tight hairpin bends and the road continues on the normal land as if nothing had happened. Fantastic! We simply had to experience this stretch of road.

Region around Paicone

As there is very little traffic on the Ruta Nacional 40 in this northernmost part of Argentina, the dirt and gravel roads are in perfect condition. We cruise swiftly through the impressive landscape. We had some bad luck further down with the Rainbow Mountains – mountains of multicolored rock. But even here around Paicone, most of the mountains are predominantly red to rust-red with green patches. This makes for a difficult to capture but breathtaking panorama for the natural eye. We enjoy the drive, after all, the mountains in Europe would all be gray and stony in such a scenery. We find this landscape correspondingly special.

Cusi Cusi, Valle de la Luna

Near Cusi Cusi we visit the Valle de la Luna – the Moon Valley. Unique processes have deposited white and red layers of rock here and made them visible again through erosion. The Moon Valley is an extraordinary, very barren landscape where the rugged rock formations and the special coloring are in the foreground. We don’t stay long, but we do take some photos of this special landscape. Whether the landscape really resembles the moon or Mars is up to the observer. The only certainty is that we feel like we are on another planet in this landscape.

Viaducto la Polvorilla and train above the clouds

On the rest of the journey on Ruta 40, we drive through desert-like landscapes and sometimes somewhat narrow passages. But the drive through the Altiplano on the Argentinian side alone is enough to make us enjoy this journey to the full. We now also change state from Jujuy to Salta. And as if with a flick of a switch, the road conditions also change. From a two-lane and well-surfaced gravel road, National Road 40 abruptly becomes single-lane and poorly maintained. This means that some parts of the road have been turned back into a riverbed by the rains and we now have to balance our campervan Ben over high embankments and deep washed-out patches to the next attraction. It’s not far to the La Polvorilla viaduct – but it’s quite a challenge. Fortunately, we don’t get stuck and are able to take a closer look at the viaduct. The tracks are laid about 60m above the valley floor on a metal structure. To our surprise, after about 10 minutes of waiting, we are actually in the right place at the right time. Today, tourist trains rarely cross the viaduct. But just when we are there, a train arrives. Now we really do see a train almost floating through the blue sky. It’s perfect for a souvenir snapshot with our campervan Ben at the foot of the viaduct.

Abra del Acay

As one of the highest drivable passes in Argentina, we visit the Abra del Acay Pass at the end of our tour on National Road 40 in the north of Argentina. We climb up the unpaved road once again to almost 5000m. Well, the sign on the pass says 4890m, but our GPS says almost 100m more in altitude. It doesn’t matter – we are once again close to the roof of the world on the Abra del Acay and enjoy the vast landscapes without much civilization in any direction. As a landslide has severely damaged the road on the south side of the pass, we take the precaution of going back the way we came and after that riding the next few kilometers on asphalt roads.
The whole northern loop on the Ruta Nacional 40 was a good 700 km of sometimes better, sometimes very bad gravel and dirt roads, with ripio more often than we would have liked. However, the landscape generously compensated us for the condition of the roads and we really enjoyed this four-day detour.

We are looking forward to further adventures on the Ruta Nacional 40 in Argentina. After all, this remarkable road accompanies us along the entire length of Argentina from north to south.