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6 of Argentina’s Most Scenic Landscapes

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If you have been following my blog (or have noticed there are five times more posts in the Argentina category than any other country category), you know that I love Argentina.  Of course I lived in Buenos Aires for a total of eight months, but what I love most about Argentina is the beauty and diversity of its landscapes.  This guest post by Matt Chesteron shares some of the most scenic landscapes of Argentina.  I have seen all but one of these areas.  I think I may need to go back to see some more :-)

Argentina’s Most Scenic Landscapes

With the disarming self-deprecation that is one of their stock in trades, Argentines often wonder aloud what they did to deserve their country. Whatever it was, it must have been something good. For between the puna and the pampas, and at every step from the Andes to the Atlantic are to be found some of the most dramatic and beautiful landscapes on earth.

Neither comprehensive nor definitive, but compiled with love, here’s a list of six of my favourite Argentine landscapes.

Cataratas de Iguazú

Photo attribution: Phillie Casablanca on Flickr

If you can imagine a quarter of a million gallons of water falling off a cliff the height of the Statue of Liberty along a two-mile stretch – and that’s every second –, then you can imagine the Iguazú Falls. Most people, however, struggling to conceive such an extravaganza of sound, spectacle and spray, turn up in person, making this complex of cataracts on the Brazil-Argentina border the country’s most popular tourist attraction after Buenos Aires.

Not that seeing is necessarily believing. From the platform overlooking the Devil’s Throat, the most ferocious of the 275 falls, it can be hard to tell whether the water is falling, rising or going from side to side. Suspended over this cauldron of boiling white water, you know that you are perfectly safe; but you grip the rail just the same.

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Photo attribution: Miradas.com.br on Flickr

Home to increasingly popular tourist stops like Tilcará as well as a number of high-altitude hamlets either hidden from or ignored by mapping satellites, this narrow, 100-mile-long gorge cuts a vivid swathe through the high plains of Jujuy, Argentina’s northernmost province.

Here, several ecoregions converge: the hardscrabble and oxygen-thin Andean Altiplano to the west and north, the foothills of the same range to the east, and, to the south, the gentler, more fertile valleys that run towards Salta province. The Quebrada’s star attraction is the precisely named Cerro de Los Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colours), whose gorgeous, glowing rock sediments light up the sky above the town of Purmamarca.

Valle de la Luna

Photo attribution: morrissey on Flickr

 

Arid and eerie and ominously patrolled by scavenging birds, the Valley of the Moon deserves its extraterrestrial nickname, even if the terrain’s reddish hue is more suggestive of Mars. (The site’s official name, Ischigualasto, is even more of a downer: it means “place of death” in the Diaguita tongue.)

Palaentologists have been coming here since the 1930s, drawn by the pristine dinosaur remains buried in the badlands. Tourists come to admire the Valley’s towering hoodoo rock formations, chiselled out over eons by the hot desert wind into phantasmagorical shapes. Apart from the crunch of 4×4 wheels on gravel, the only sound here is a kind of deafening silence.

Mendoza

Photo attribution: hanneorla on Flickr

Mendoza’s landscapes are almost as intoxicating as its wines. This isn’t immediately apparent when driving here from the east (the best way to arrive, if you have time) since the first half of the province presents itself as a drier, drabber version of the pampas. But then the road begins to tilt, and a smudge across the horizon gradually sharpens into focus, revealing the snow-capped spires of the Andean cordillera.

This is the ceiling of the Americas, with Mt. Aconcagua its highest point. Most people don’t make it that far and are content to wander around the scenic foothills, where a ribbon of irrigated oases such as the Uco Valley support vineyards, orchards and olive plantations.

This video provides a little more insight into what to expect from Mendoza:

Cerca del Cielo (close to the sky) from Argento Wine on Vimeo.

The north Patagonia lake district

 

Photo attribution: cgraphics2020 on Flickr

Patagonia is like a blank canvas in a ravishingly ornate frame. Some travellers, most notably Charles Darwin, have found a certain affinity for the vast, empty central steppe. But most people who fall for the region fall for the places on the edge of the desert: the mountainous regions to the west and south; the rugged Atlantic coastline with its whale-torn seas.

One of these border regions is the northern lake district, the unofficial but also unimprovable collective name for the temperate southern beech forests, rapid rivers, glittering lagoons, and Altoandino (the zone of perpetual snow above the treeline) landscapes found in the provinces of Neuquén and Río Negro. Two great national parks, Nahuel Huapi and Lanín, ensure that the region is kept spick, span and unexploited, while towns such as Bariloche and San Martín de los Andes provide infrastructure for tourists.

Parque Nacional Los Glaciares

It’s a versatile substance, H2O. At the Iguazú Falls it cascades and churns with all the subtlety of a washer with a noisy spin cycle before drifting away in great clouds of vapour over the rainforest canopy. In the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, by contrast, the water stands stock still and silent, frozen into immense sheets twice the size of New York City, and whose tongues, forking down the mountain slopes, end in sheer walls of blue ice the height of apartment buildings.

Visitors to the national park can go glacier hopping, getting close (usually by boat) to several of these ice behemoths, which include the Upsala (huge), the Viedma (huger) and the Perito Moreno (smaller, but more spectacular). And the drama doesn’t end there. Above the ice field rise the wild and sublime landscapes and the jagged peaks of the Fitz Roy Massif. Trekkers and mountaineers like to claim this territory for themselves, but this is first and foremost condor country.

How many of these landscapes have you seen in Argentina?  Do you have any other favorite regions?

 

Comments

  7. Hello!!!!!!! I visited all of them, I´m argentinian! My favourite landscapes are Quebrada de Humahuaca (the hole Northwest) and Puna (the plateau) and South patagonia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  9. These are such beautiful landscapes and so diverse! I’d love to go to all of them but if I had to pic one it would have to be Cataratas de Iguazú. I’ve dreamed about going there for years! Hopefully I’ll get there one day soon! :)
    Sasha recently posted..Mango Bay Resort

  13. Even though I’ve only spent about a week in the country – in BA and in Iguazu, I’m very drawn to Argentina – much more so than to any other South American country. Can’t explain it.
    Sophie recently posted..The stairs of Girona

  23. hey I’m Argentinian and I had not the opportunity to know the whole my country, I don’t have money maybe someday 😀

  26. Argentina provides travelers with unforgettable experience. There are many interesting places to visit and see in Argentina. Also, this country is known for its beautiful landscapes, which provide great natural views and unforgettable impressions.
    London4Travelers recently posted..Top 10 London Attractions

  28. Google “Argentina one photo a day”, and you will see jawdropping Argentine landscapes totally out of the radar.

    I assure you that your list of scenic landscapes will be deeply modified.

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