Argentina
Tolar Grande
Turquoise pools surface through salt crust at 3,500 metres, origin unknown, depth unmeasured.
Tolar Grande in Salta Province is a village of 250 people on the edge of the Puna de Atacama at 3,530 metres, surrounded by three active volcanic complexes, a field of smoking fumaroles, a giant salt flat, and a lagoon that turns pink with flamingos in the early morning. The Cono de Arita, a nearly perfect volcanic cone that rises 700 metres from the Salar de Arizaro to a precise point, is 30 kilometres south of the village and appears on horizon at every orientation. There is almost nothing else for 200 kilometres in any direction.
Tolar Grande is the departure point for the Puna Atacameña circuit, one of Argentina's most geologically extreme accessible landscapes. The Salar de Arizaro, at 1,600 square kilometres the largest salt flat in Argentina, spreads south and west from the village across a basin surrounded by volcanoes exceeding 6,000 metres. The Ojos del Mar — a cluster of small salt-crusted pools fed by subterranean springs — lie 12 kilometres from the village and contain stromatolites, some of Earth's oldest living organisms, dating to 3.5 billion years ago. The Tolar Grande fumarole field, active volcanic vents emitting sulphurous gas from fissures in the ground, can be walked through on foot. The combination of extreme altitude, volcanic geology, and endemic high-altitude wildlife makes this one of the most biogeographically interesting corners of the Andes.
Solo
Tolar Grande is for the traveller who wants to feel genuinely remote — not inconvenienced-remote but geographically remote, surrounded by a landscape that is functioning at a geological scale completely indifferent to human presence. The logistics are simple; the experience is not.
Couple
The sunrise over the Salar de Arizaro, with the Cono de Arita catching the first light and the flamingos beginning to move across the pink water, is the kind of image that makes people quiet for a moment before they start photographing. Getting there requires effort that adds to the feeling.
- The village has fewer than 300 inhabitants and no ATM — cash and provisions must come from Salta.
- Ojos del Mar, the turquoise pools, sit 12km from the village on salt crust above an underground aquifer.
- The Puna de Atacama here is one of the highest, driest inhabited landscapes on Earth at over 3,600m.
- The Campo de Piedra Pómez is 40km east — the two sites combine into a day of landscapes from another planet.
Simple puna provisions — llama jerky, quinoa soup, and bread baked in adobe ovens.
Mate shared with locals in a hamlet where the nearest restaurant is hours away.
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