The Norte is where Argentina stops looking European. The pampas give out, the land tilts up towards the altiplano, and what replaces them is red rock, cardón cactus, adobe churches and villages that have been speaking Quechua longer than there has been an Argentina. It covers Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca and Santiago del Estero, and it is the most distinctive corner of the country.
The Quebrada de Humahuaca is the headline: a gorge running north from Jujuy with hillsides striped in seven colours, strung with villages that hold their own against the scenery. West of it the road climbs to the Salinas Grandes salt flat and on towards the Chilean border at 4,000 metres.
Salta is the region's handsome colonial capital and the base most people use, with the wine country at Cafayate three hours south through the Quebrada de las Conchas — a drive that is the point of the journey rather than the means to it. Cafayate's torrontés is Argentina's best white wine and grows nowhere else convincingly.
San Miguel de Tucumán is the big city of the region and where independence was declared in 1816. It is greener and more subtropical than the rest, sitting where the Andes meet sugar country.
Come between April and November. The summer is the wet season here, and the dirt roads that make the region worth visiting turn to mud.
