From Salta to Jujuy on Ruta 9; narrow – yes, but the jungle – fine! | Nota Bene: Eugene Kaspersky’s Official Blog

LatAm-2026 so far:

Mount Fitz Roy – approached
Cerro Torre mountain – viewed
Fitz Roy again – seen properly
Huemul Glacier – nearly reached )
Perito Moreno – observed up close

Next up – Jujuy Province and its multicolored mountains, salt flats, and roads that seem to go on forever…

Note: none (0!) of these photos is Photoshopped! This is exactly how it all looks. No, really!…

The salt flats aren’t as big as Bolivia’s famous Uyuni next door, but they’re still really impressive:

But I’m getting ahead of myself… First we needed to get there. And doing so was almost as awesome as the destination. Why? Mostly because of the roads… I mean – just look at the views you get from them! ->

The fastest way to get to Jujuy is to fly to the city of Salta. Or you can drive in from Chile after visiting its Atacama Desert (a bit later we’d be going the opposite way). Or here’s a really great travel route (mostly by car): Jujuy in Argentina > Atacama in Chile > Altiplano plateau and the above-mentioned Uyuni salt flat > Lake Titicaca, and finishing off with a bike ride along Death Road. I highly recommend precisely that order too – with the impressions ramping up so that the most spectacular stuff comes at the end of the trip. But keep in mind that if you’re going with tour operators’ transport you’ll have to switch from one vehicle to another at each border.

But I’m getting sidetracked. Let’s talk a bit about Salta. Main thing (for us): it has an airport. It’s pretty too…

It’s a typical Spanish colonial town: the main square in the center, the inevitable cathedral there too, some main commercial and administrative buildings, and around the center low-rise residential districts, with one or two-story houses. That’s about it.

Oh!… And a few French architectural motifs ->

Of course, the city does have its own long history, and if you feel like it you can dive into that for a few hours; however, we’d a long drive ahead of us later, so we settled for just a few glances around:

And off we set. On the way out of the city this piece of kunst caught our attention:

So, why’s there an armadillo in the middle of the roundabout?…

You can get to the main northern Argentine tourist attractions by two roads: one’s a bit longer but faster; the second goes over an old pass and through a jungle. Of course, we took the latter!…

It’s an old road, and for sure there are no plans to widen it…

Old – and long: it’s the Ruta Nacional 9, connecting Buenos Aires with the very northern provinces of Argentina and also Bolivia.

Old – and narrow (up in the mountains) ->

It’s customary for tourists to park up alongside the road and then stroll along it taking in the sights and sounds of the jungle…

Which is exactly what we did. Ok, it wasn’t quite Madagascar at night with all the intense buzzing of nocturnal insect life, but subdued, meditation-friendly buzzing was still noted…