Termas de Fiambalá

The day begins in hot water and ends in one of the quieter corners of the Calchaquí Valleys. Between the termas and the camp there is the long backtrack south, a stretch of flat Catamarca scrubland, and lunch in Belén before the road north delivers the first taste of the valley country ahead.

The Termas

Camp is broken at 7:30 am — fifteen minutes before sunrise, with the cordillera still dark against a lightening sky. The 15-kilometre drive north on Ruta Provincial 34 to the Termas de Fiambalá takes only minutes, and the TR4 arrives at the complex gates just before 8:00 am as the morning shift opens. The ticket, bought the previous evening at the Secretaría de Hacienda y Finanzas in Fiambalá town — open until 9:00 pm — covers entry to the full complex for the morning turn, which runs until 1:00 pm.

The Complejo Termal sits at around 1,900 metres in a narrow granite canyon barely 50 metres wide, its walls rising nearly 100 metres on either side. Fourteen stone pools are stepped into the hillside at progressively higher temperatures — the water emerges from the rock at up to 60°C at the source and cools as it descends through each successive pool, from the small, intensely hot upper pools to the more temperate lower ones. At this hour the canyon is in shadow, the pools steam against the cold morning air, and the light arrives slowly over the canyon rim as the sun clears the cordillera. It is the most civilised start of the trip — a morning soak before the road, rather than after it.