Seven wonders of the Puna: where Argentina runs out of roads

Beyond the squawking of a thousand flamingos, beyond the crunch of one of the world's biggest salt flats, beyond the shrill cry of a wild vicuña, there's an expanse of sand dunes deep in the Argentine Puna where a profound silence hangs in the air. For a brief moment, there's no wind, no roads, no planes, no birds, no phones, no noise. Nothing quite conveys a sense of isolation and wildness like absolute silence.

And yet, that very evening, you'll be treated like family in a busy little oasis town, where llama caravans once sought shelter on their long-distance trade routes between the Andes and the Atacama Desert. Generous food, good wine, smiling hosts, a comfy bed—and a sense of hospitality never more appreciated than after a day bumping along tracks hewn from the tyres of your guide's 4x4.

Pick up any guidebook and Argentina's travel highlights make for an intoxicating list: the tropical waterfalls of Iguazú; the great glaciers and mountains of Patagonia; the sophisticated streets of Buenos Aires; the vineyards of Mendoza looking splendid below the Andes.

But if you seek a journey in its truest sense - one that reaches sights so beautiful they could actually make you weep—the lesser-explored Puna is not to be missed.

The word 'Puna' originates from the Quechua dialect and describes the high-altitude area in the Andes above the tree line and below the permanent snow line. It's the third-largest plateau in the world, with an average altitude of 3,800m. A place of wonder, and one we'd love anyone with a sense of adventure and a passion for wild places to experience at least once. It also bookends beautifully with tango, wineries and waterfalls.

Still need convincing? Let the photos do the talking...

This salt flat is bigger than Greater London and twice the size of New York City. To cross it is to follow in the footsteps of the ancient arrieros - shepherds who guided their llama caravans towards Chile - and to trace a section of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network that stitched together their vast empire. In the south, the Cono de Arita rises 200m from the white expanse: a near-perfect cone, inexplicably there, sacred to pre-Inca peoples for reasons you'll understand the moment you see it.

You've heard of mirages in the desert. Ojos del Mar is not one of them. These pools are startlingly, improbably real - turquoise water ringed by a thick crust of white salt, the whole scene doubling itself in the morning light. Stand here at the right moment and the reflections stretch the landscape in every direction. It's disorienting in the best possible way.

Between December and March, around 19,000 flamingos descend on this lake - the largest gathering in South America. The noise alone is something else. And if you're lucky enough to catch their mating rituals, well, eccentric barely covers it.

Cerro Galán is one of the world's largest volcanic calderas - 34 km north to south, 24 km east to west. So vast, in fact, that nobody knew it was a caldera at all until they saw it from space.

Even on a day spent among black lava fields, red-rock mountains, crimson lagoons and white sand dunes, it's the pumice fields that stay with you. The landscape was born from a volcanic explosion so violent it would have produced a mushroom cloud visible for hundreds of miles. What remains - ash and debris sculpted over millennia into strange, towering formations, some 20 meters high - feels less like geology and more like something dreamt up.

The Vega is a lush water meadow, an improbable ribbon of green sustaining the oasis villages you pass through. In the shadow of the 6,400m Antofalla Volcano, vicuñas and llamas graze alongside wild donkeys and Andean ostriches - as good a spot as any to watch camelids doing what camelids do.

This one's hardly a secret. Back in civilisation, the Hill of Seven Colors rises above the Andean town of Purmamarca - an Instagram fixture and, yes, genuinely impressive. But having seen what lies out beyond the beaten track, you might find yourself looking at it differently.

How to do it: You can experience all this and more on our Into the Puna two-week trip. The Puna part is a five-night journey through northwest Argentina, going about us far away from civilisation as most of us will ever go in our lives. You have a specialist private driver and guide throughout and stay in small oasis towns and Andean villages. That section follows a short road trip from the thriving culture of Salta through magnificent valleys to the world's highest-altitude vineyards in Cafayate, staying at a lovely winery hotel. Like any trip to Argentina, you start in Buenos Aires and you can add the tropical Iguazú Falls, for the ultimate contrast.