Salta & the Northwest

The valleys of the northwest were farmed for thousands of years before the Spanish came. Diaguita peoples, including the Calchaquí, built terraces and fortified hill settlements, and in the 15th century the Incas brought the region into their empire; sections of their road network, the Qhapaq Ñan, are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Settlements such as the Pucará of Tilcara and the city of Quilmes date from this long pre-Hispanic past.

The Spanish came from Peru rather than across the Atlantic. Santiago del Estero, founded in 1553, is the oldest surviving city in Argentina, followed by San Miguel de Tucumán, Salta, San Salvador de Jujuy and Catamarca. The region supplied mules, cloth and food to the silver mines of Potosí and was far richer than Buenos Aires in colonial times. The Calchaquí Wars lasted more than a century, and after the last rising the Spanish deported the people of Quilmes far to the south-east.

In the independence wars the northwest was the front line against royalist armies from Peru. Belgrano ordered the Jujuy Exodus of 1812 and won battles at Tucumán in 1812 and Salta in 1813, and Martín Miguel de Güemes led gaucho guerrillas in Salta. Independence was declared in Tucumán on 9 July 1816. From the late 19th century the railway brought sugar-cane mills to Tucumán and Jujuy. In 1975 the army's Operativo Independencia against the ERP guerrillas in Tucumán, the first large-scale military operation of the Dirty War, involved forced disappearances and secret detention camps.

The northwest is the most Andean and most Indigenous part of Argentina. Many people in Jujuy and the Puna are of Kolla or other Indigenous descent, and Santiago del Estero keeps a local form of Quechua, called Quichua. Pachamama, Mother Earth, is honoured in August, when food and drink are offered to her in holes dug in the ground, and the Catholic calendar is rich with processions, above all Salta's Señor y Virgen del Milagro in September.

Carnival is the region's biggest festival: in the Quebrada de Humahuaca it begins by unearthing the Pujllay, a devil-like figure of fun, and ends with his burial after days of music and dancing. The music of the northwest is folk rather than tango: zambas, chacareras from Santiago del Estero, bagualas and coplas sung to the beat of the caja drum, and the peñas of Salta, where musicians and guests play into the night.

Gauchos here wear red ponchos and ride with leather guardamontes, wing-like hides on the saddle that shield the legs from thorny scrub, and turn out on horseback for Güemes's anniversary in June. Weaving, carved cardón cactus wood and ceramics are sold in village markets.

San Miguel de Tucumán, the fifth-largest urban area in Argentina, is the largest city, followed by Salta with around 600,000. San Salvador de Jujuy, Santiago del Estero with its neighbour La Banda, and San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca are the other provincial capitals. Beyond them, villages in the valleys and on the Puna are small, remote and often poor.

Tucumán, the most densely populated province, is one of the world's main lemon producers and grows sugar cane, as does Jujuy. Tobacco, beans and soybeans are farmed in the lowlands of Salta, and Cafayate's vineyards and tourism across the region are growing. The Puna's salt flats hold lithium, and new mines have brought investment as well as protests from Indigenous communities worried about water.

Life is slower, more traditional and more religious than in Buenos Aires. Family ties are strong, siesta hours are respected, and in the villages llamas, goats and small plots of maize and potatoes remain a way of life. Poverty is higher than the national average, and many young people leave for the cities.

The northwest cooks with Andean ingredients: maize, potatoes, quinoa, squash and llama. Empanadas are a matter of provincial pride — the small, juicy empanadas salteñas and the knife-cut beef empanadas tucumanas, celebrated each September at a national festival in Famaillá. Humitas are fresh maize paste with onion and cheese steamed in maize husks, and tamales are maize dough filled with meat. Locro, a thick stew of maize, beans, squash and pork, warms winter days.

In the highlands, llama meat is served grilled or in stews, and quinoa and Andean potatoes are staples again. Tafí del Valle makes a well-known cheese, and quesillo, a soft fresh cheese, is eaten with honey or cayote, a squash preserve.

Cafayate's high-altitude vineyards produce Torrontés, a floral, aromatic white wine, as well as Malbec and Tannat, and there are other vineyards in the Calchaquí Valleys, some among the highest in the world. Api, a thick hot drink of purple maize, and chicha, a fermented maize beer, are traditional drinks, and coca leaves are chewed widely in the highlands.

Salta has a pink-and-white cathedral, the red-and-gold San Francisco church, the cable car up Cerro San Bernardo and the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology, which displays the Inca children found on the summit of Llullaillaco. From Salta, roads lead south through the Quebrada de las Conchas, a canyon of red rock formations, to Cafayate and its wineries, and west over the Cuesta del Obispo and through Los Cardones National Park, a forest of giant cacti, to the adobe village of Cachi.

In Jujuy, the Quebrada de Humahuaca runs north past Purmamarca, beneath the Hill of Seven Colours; Tilcara, with its reconstructed pre-Inca fortress; and Humahuaca, with its independence monument. Beyond lie the painted Serranía de Hornocal and the remote village of Iruya. The road west climbs to the Salinas Grandes, the dazzling salt flat on the Puna.

In Tucumán, the Casa Histórica and the city's plazas recall 1816. Tafí del Valle has its menhirs and reservoir, and the ruins of Quilmes lie beyond the pass at Amaicha del Valle. Catamarca's attractions include the high Puna of Antofagasta de la Sierra, the dunes and hot springs of Fiambalá and the Inca site of El Shincal, and Santiago del Estero has the spa town of Termas de Río Hondo.