Garganta del Diablo

Five hundred metres further north, La Garganta del Diablo is the turnaround point and the most dramatic formation in the quebrada — a slot canyon within the canyon, its walls rising vertically in striated red rock to a narrow strip of sky above. The passage narrows toward the back into something that genuinely suggests a throat, and the scale is disorienting in the way that enclosed rock always is. Local artisans set up along the approach corridor selling empanadas baked in stone ovens — a reasonable argument for the existence of road trips generally.