Tolar Grande

The first time I went to Tolar Grande, very few tourist tours offered it in their brochures. Indeed, even though it’s a day’s drive from Salta, Tolar Grande stands out: here, the mineral kingdom is omnipresent.

Tolar Grande is a village that features many mining sites. Most are also abandoned because companies prefer the Chilean side closer to the sea and therefore to potential customers.

Tolar Grande and its surroundings

To get to Tolar Grande, the route comes straight out of a science fiction book, while still being very real… You’ll therefore start by taking the Cloud Train which will take you to the Polvorilla Viaduct (located at more than 4,000 meters above sea level). This viaduct strangely resembles the viaduct from which Tintin jumps in “The Temple of the Sun”. On its route, the railway crosses a total of 29 bridges, 21 tunnels, 13 viaducts, 2 corkscrews and 2 zigzags.

Then, you have to take the road, or rather the track, towards the Salar de Pocitos via route 27. From this lost mining town, the track winds through an incredible lunar landscape, amid surreal reliefs and colors. We are here in the heart of the Andean highlands at an altitude of 4,000 meters, but you might think you’re on the planet Mars!

Tolar Grande, a “Wild West” town, is the starting point for breathtaking sites, such as the Arita Cone, an impressive, dark-colored, perfect natural cone set in the middle of the white immensity of the Salar de Arizaro and which resembles a lighthouse for shipwrecked people from the salt deserts; the Coincidence Mine “Mina La Casualidad”, an old sulfur mine, on the border with Chile and close to the Llullaillaco Volcano and its 6,739 meters above sea level, where the mummies of 3 children from the time of the Incas.

And then, from Tolar Grande, you’ll have the possibility of continuing the adventure towards Chile, or going south towards the Province of Catamarca. You’ll then have to cross the salt desert of the “dead man”… Quite a program!