On the gas – time to slam (on the roads of LatAm)!

In my previous post I promised to show you some roads and the views to be had therefrom in Latin America, right? Today – that promise: fulfilled. Get ready for picturesque, vast arid landscapes, seemingly painted mountains, and ribbons of road winding through it all:

Not much to say here – I’ll let the photos do the talking:

The inevitable cacti!…

Sometimes the roads are carved right through the mountains:

Even after the asphalt ends – the road’s still pretty decent:

We drove through the little town of Humahuaca:

Climbing up toward a mountain pass, we were headed for the Salinas Grandes salt flat and Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The road zigzags left and right – a lovely stretch of hairpin bends:

Here’s a scenic section. Sadly, I couldn’t photograph the full series of hairpin turns. You can’t see them from ground level, and the wind was too strong to fly a drone…

The salt flat peeking through over there:

Salt flat: straight ahead ->

Cruising along Route 52 (Ruta Nacional 52) ->

This is the salt flat where, later, we went biking:

But for now though we were just driving past:

The road’s not smooth everywhere! ->

Next up – heading into Chile and up into the Atacama highlands. Which means, of course, crossing the border…

Right here:

Welcome to the Paso de Jama border crossing, which to me seemed unique, but maybe it’s the norm in this part of the world…: both customs offices – Chilean and Argentine – share the same building, working side by side! ->

This is where we switched from the Argentinian tour operator to the Chilean one. Curiously – their vehicles were practically identical:

Argentinian on the left, Chilean on the right. You can tell by the plates:

Once finally over the border, the road became Chile Route 27 (a continuation of the Argentinian road). Sure, it’s no Kolyma Highway, but then – road-building is so much easier here. Still – 400km across the Andes, topping out above 4000 (peaking at around 4800!) meters above sea-level – it’s one of the most spectacular roads I’ve ever driven on! Actually, sadly – not driven on, but been driven on as a passenger, not a driver – big difference. That said, actually, I don’t regret not being behind the wheel here: the earlier legs of the trip had wiped me out (my fellow travelers too) real bad ( that there are no photos at all for some stretches) – we all fell asleep, exhausted in the mini-bus…

You can tell you’re in a different country immediately: different road design and, curiously, different landscape style (EH?!) ->

Welcome to Chile!…

But I’ll save Chile for a post of its own…

The best hi-res photos from our LatAm-2026 trip are here.