Tafí del Valle is where the people of San Miguel de Tucumán go to escape the summer heat. The road climbs out of the subtropical lowlands through cloud forest and emerges, at around 2,000 metres, into a wide green valley with a reservoir at its centre and bare mountains all round — a different climate and a different country from the city a hundred kilometres below.
The valley is best known for its menhirs: carved standing stones of the Tafí culture, which farmed here roughly two thousand years ago. They were gathered into a park near El Mollar, and seeing them together makes it easy to forget they were moved there in the twentieth century from where they originally stood across the valley. The La Angostura reservoir at the valley floor is the setting for most of what people do — walking, riding, and in windy months windsurfing.
Tafí is also known for its cheese, made on the valley's old estancias, and a few of them sell it direct. The Jesuit-era chapel and estancia of La Banda holds a small museum.
From Tafí the road continues over the Abra del Infiernillo pass and down to Amaicha del Valle and the ruins of Quilmes, and on into the Calchaquí Valley towards Cafayate. It is a fine back road into the wine country, and much quieter than the approach from Salta.