Catamarca in Your Instagram —Five Extraordinary Landscapes for Taking Photos

If you travelled, but you didn’t upload anything to your social media, does it mean you actually travelled? Let’s be honest, sharing your route on the network is almost obligatory when making a tour around a destination. It’s up to you if you do, or not. Good news is that if we do want to tell the world about our travels, Catamarca is an ideal place. A route with the world’s highest volcanoes, geysers that look like coloured lagoons, a white desert, and much more. 

You don’t need to go to another galaxy to be amazed; everything you’ll see in Catamarca is without any doubt from another planet. Are you ready? Take these down:

1. Dunes of Tatón

Shades of white, orange, and brown are mixed to paint an endless number of sand elevations ready to delight worldwide tourists. Apart from providing amazing views, it is the site where the world’s highest dune is, Federico Kirbus, with 1,230 metres. When we said there were exceptional landscapes, we were not exaggerating.

What can you do there? Gaze at the vastness and get your phone memory card full. It is also a great area for practising sandboarding and enjoying a 4x4 truck excursion.

2. Campo de Piedra Pómez 

An endless chalk-coloured field; the famous Catamarca’s rock ocean; a scenery you can visit thousands of times because it will never look the same... The thing is, after hundreds of years, it is still being shaped whimsically by the Andean winds. Even though it is not a sea, theoretically speaking, this landscape has its own waves made of pumice stone. 

It’s a field of 25 km of whitish canvas just two hours from Antofagasta de la Sierra, at 3,000 metres above sea level and located in volcanic ground. Actually, these volcanoes gave rise to one of the most impressive images in the country.

 3. Seismiles Route

Seismiles stand for six thousands, and that is because this route goes through some of the highest volcanic peaks in the world. As you may have guessed, these peaks surpass 6,000 metres above sea level. Yet, that is not the only attraction because the route also crosses landscapes packed with local flora and fauna fuse with the quaintest villages. 

The starting point is the city of Fiambalá, known for hosting the Rally Dakar, among other things. Covering Route 60 until the border with Chile is another classic option that you should tick off from your bucket list —there, you can see the world’s highest volcanoes. Take this down: Nevado Ojo del Salado (leading the world ranking with 6,864 metres) and Monte Pissis (following the former, with 6792 metres) are a must.

If there are trekking lovers among the readers, they have found their ideal location: this natural spectacle can be enjoyed from a car or, to their benefit, through organised mountaineering expeditions. 

4. Ojos de Campo

In one of the most desertic areas of Argentina’s Puna and in the world’s largest salt flat (Antofalla), there are undoubtedly three main figures that leave everyone speechless: Ojos de Campo. The name Ojos de campo (“eyes of the field”, in English) makes reference to their circular shapes and shiny features; and, even though they look like three lagoons, they are three inactive geysers with shades of blue, red, and black. This is an ideal location for the restless souls, and making a 4x4 vehicle tour with a camera in hand is the best option to visit it. 

Legend has it that those who get too close to the eyes will be trapped; but your camera’s zoom can spare you the bad moment, right? 

5. Laguna Verde Lake

As a matter of fact, locals call it Laguna Esmeralda to avoid confusion with its namesake in Chile, keeping the colour concept constant. It is a water mirror that captivates every visitor, as its name (“Emerald Lagoon”, in English) suggests. As everywhere in Catamarca, no Instagram filter is needed to gleam before the camera lens.

It is located at the foot of Monte Pissis, in the middle of a vast salt flat that extends through a valley surrounded by seven of the 12 highest volcanoes in the planet. It is precisely thanks to the white ground that the lagoon has its distinctive colour.