South Through Tinogasta
After the termas, the route returns south through Fiambalá town, then continues on Ruta Nacional 60 to Tinogasta before picking up Ruta Nacional 40 northward. This backtrack — roughly an hour to Tinogasta — is the price of the Fiambalá detour, and it is a flat, uncomplicated drive through open pre-puna terrain that requires nothing but forward momentum. The road is good, the landscape is wide and spare, and the Sierra de Fiambalá recedes in the mirror. Tinogasta, a junction town of adobe and low buildings on the Río Abaucán, is a fuel stop and nothing more — fill up here before the long run north on Ruta 40.