Fodor's Expert Review Barrancas and Casabindo

From Purmamarca, it's a two-hour drive up into the high-altitude Puna past the Salinas Grandes on RN 9 to visit the rural Andean community of Barrancas (also known as Abdón Castro Tolay) to see cave paintings and petroglyphs. Also stop by the new (2020) Centro de Interpretación Arqueológica de interpretation center and base for archeologists for a glimpse of an 8,870-year-old mummy. The center also houses a fascinating replica of a stone map. 

Continue getting to know the Puna driving north for another hour to Casabindo, a 17th-century Spanish founded village found at 3,606 masl known for the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción church and Toreo de la Vincha, an annual bull fighting contest that takes palace every August 15th in honor of the said virgin in the main square (no bulls are harmed).