Tour Hornocal

Hornocal

Hornocal is the mountain of 14 colors and definitely worth the trip. I visited the colored mountain Hornocal with a tour from Salta which I will briefly describe here.

As of Jan 2020, this tour from Salta only took place on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. So if you want to do this tour, inform yourself when it takes place, to not block the possible day with other tours. The majority of the tour agencies did not offer an English-speaking tour, or if they had one, then for twice the price. I don’t remember most of the things that are told on a tour anyway or I can google them. So I decided to do the tour in Spanish, after all it was primarily about the impressions and pictures.

The tour to Hornocal started at 7 a.m. and the first stop was Purmamarca. The city is in front of the mountain with the 7 colors. I visited Purmamarca on the Salines Grandes Tour already, but there in the evening. In the morning the light was much better to take a few nice pictures of the colored mountain. In the city center, there were many colorful shopping opportunities. There was still a long way to go, so we continued after a short stop. A lot more driving on a paved road to Humahuaca and from there we went on a gravel road and up the mountain.

Finally we reached the highlight of the tour, a viewpoint at 4350m to see the amazing 14 color mountain Hornocal. And compared to the 7 colors mountain, here was also the wow effect. Simply great and even better than in the pictures. Now it was clear, that the long journey and the tour in Spanish were worth it. Remember, depending on how you feel, you should not do any rapid movements here, because you are at high altitude and your body is probably not used it. I felt good and had been at a high altitude for the past few days, so I went down the path a bit. However the way back was quite exhausting, to be back at the bus on time. Overall, the view from below is not that much different.

After the stop with lots of photos, we first went back to Humahuaca on the gravel road. It was time for a late lunch. After a short tour through the city, we continued our way back to Salta. On the way back we stopped at the Tropico de Capricornio, a large stone that marks the southern solstice circle. After another photo stop at another colored mountain range, we finally went back to Salta. We were back in town around 8:00 p.m..

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