The Quebrada de las Flechas

Thirty kilometres of Ruta 40 between Angastaco and San Carlos run through something that does not look like road scenery at all. Sandstone beds that were laid down flat have been tilted almost vertical by the rise of the Andes, then eroded into grey and white fins that point at the sky. The name — Valley of the Arrows — is literal.

What you actually see

The road is gravel and it runs below the formations rather than around them, so the fins close in on both sides. At the Quebrada de las Flechas natural monument there is a marked viewpoint and a short walk up onto a saddle, which is the only way to get a sense of the scale: from the car the rock reads as a wall, from above it reads as a field of blades running for kilometres.

The colour is not red here, as it is in the Quebrada de las Conchas further east. It is grey, bone and pale ochre, and it changes very little through the day — which makes this one of the few landscapes in the Northwest that photographs well at midday, when the shadows between the fins are at their sharpest.

Driving it

Allow an hour and a half for thirty kilometres, more if you stop. The surface is corrugated gravel with sandy patches, and there are several dry river crossings that fill fast in summer storms. A normal car is fine in dry weather; after rain, ask in Angastaco before setting off.

There is no fuel, no signal and almost no traffic. Carry water.

Stopping points

• The signed viewpoint inside the natural monument, with the walk up to the saddle.
• Angastaco, at the northern end: a small adobe village with a bodega and a plaza, and the last beds before Cafayate if you want to split the drive.
• San Carlos, at the southern end, where the pavement resumes and Cafayate is twenty minutes away.

Where it sits in a trip

The Quebrada de las Flechas is the middle of the Salta–Cachi–Cafayate run, and it is the reason to take the gravel rather than the paved RN 68 in both directions. Most people drive it north to south, finishing in Cafayate for the evening, and return to Salta through the Quebrada de las Conchas the next day. Doing both gorges in opposite directions on consecutive days is the best twenty-four hours of driving in the region.