Sierras de Córdoba Argentina: Don’t miss these Hippie Villages

Just outside Argentina’s second largest city, Córdoba, lies the central sierras range dividing the region into a few valleys. Here the summers are hot but rivers are cold and abundant, and the pace is slow. This blog post will cover all our recommendations for visiting the Sierras de Cordoba.

If you already know us from previous posts, you may have noticed one of our favorite forms of travel is finding a small town or village, staying there for a while (“una noche mas”…), getting to know the local faces in the main square, finding the best place to buy vegetables and exploring the area by foot, a different path every day.

That was our goal in this tour of the central sierras, a lovely area to take a break from a hectic traveling schedule and just enjoy a slow life. Another plus is that you can get here by the cheapest form of transportation we found in Argentina: the train!

In this article, we’ll mention the places we’ve seen, all in Valle de Punilla (north-east of Córdoba city), but note there is much more to explore around.

Note about prices: Argentina’s inflation is unfortunetly insane, an prices double (or triple) themselves every year. The prices below are accurate for December 2024.

Know Before You Go

1. Weekends: Most of the places feel different during the week and the weekend. The weekend is more touristy with events and music, while during the week it’s more quiet and some places might be closed, but the atmosphere is more local.
2. Siesta: The further you go into the sierras, the more places are closed in the middle of the day. Opening times of shops are often around 9:00-13:00, and afternoon at 17:00-21:00 (some even later). Our tip is to adopt it and make a siesta too, as in summer it’s also just too hot to do anything else.
3. Argentina does it late: As in all other parts of the country, dinner starts around 22:00 (if you’re lucky) and cultural events even later. At 19:00-20:00 the locals sip their Mate with some cake or medialunas (croissont).

Sierras de Cordoba Itinerary

First stop: Villa Carlos Paz

Villa Carlos Paz, aka VCP (or just Carlos Paz by locals), is a perfect weekend getaway from Córdoba. With Rio San Antonio flowing in the middle of the city, this is basically Cordoba’s beach, especially during the hot summer weekends.

You can find “beaches” on the riverfront with stone parillas and people at all times of the day having a dip or drinking a mate with friends. Note that it’s not a small village at all, especially compared to the towns deeper in the Sierras: 500k people are living in the area, and during the university holidays it’s full of students and (as we heard) epic parties and nightlife. We are too old for that 🙂

How to Get to Villa Carlos Paz

Buses from Córdoba leave every 30 minutes every day of the week, operated by Sarmiento. The tickets costs 4000 ARS (as of Dec 2024). You can get from here by bus to almost every destination in the Sierras, as well as direcly to Mendoza and even Buenos Aires.

What is There to Do in Villa Carlos Paz

River Beaches

The city center is close to the terminal, but the river around wide Embalse San Roque is mainly used for water sports and not suitable for swimming. The nice beaches are further south, direction Mayu Sumaj. Unfortunately, there is no direct way to walk along the riverbank from the center – we tried: the path was suddenly private and blocked, or we got warned by someone it’s a dangerous neighborhood. Therefore we recommend taking the bus or an Uber to one of the nicer beaches and walk from there till you find a nice spot.

We spent most of the time around Playa Dorada, but heard Mayu Sumaj should be nice and full of music, mainly during the weekend. Further up the river, Playa de los Hippies and Cuesta Blanca are supposed to be nice, but we haven’t visited them.

Other attractions (we didn’t to) in Villa Carlos Paz

• Cable car: Take the Aerosilla to a viewpoint over the entire town.They also have a restaurant and a watersport park.
• Hike up Cerro de la Cruz (1h from the base)

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Accommodation in Villa Carlos Paz

As it’s close and there is not much to do here, you can also do it as a day trip from Córdoba capital. If you choose to stay overnight, here are some options:

We stayed at La Bicicleta Solar Casa Abierta (Google Maps, Booking.com). We thought it’s a hostel but turned out it was a private unit in the garden of Gustavo and Claudia, artists that live in the area for over 40 years. It’s well equipped and we felt good there. It’s an 8 minute walk from Playa Dorada but far from the center and buses are infrequent.

By the way – the name of the property and its decoration derive from social activism and are meant to commemorate people that gone missing during the military dictatorship in Argentina of the 70’s (link to the project).

Other options we looked at were campsites (often just by the river, some offer rooms) and La Barca hostel that only had dorms.

Second Stop: Capilla del Monte

Capilla del Monte (aka CDM, or just Capilla) is much smaller than Carlos Paz, but was still much larger than we expected. It has an alternative community and therefore you can find vegan and vegetarian restaurants, cooperative markets and spiritual people around. It also has a lot of cool nature walks within a short (and long) distance from the center. Capilla is famous due to Cerro Uritorco, the highest mountain in the Sierras (1980m), where people claim to have seen alien lights since 1930!

How to Get to Capilla del Monte

From Villa Carlos Paz by bus: Sarmiento bus leaves from the terminal 4 times a day (9:20, 10:40, 12:20, 13:50) and cost 11,300 ARS. The drive is quite exhausting as it stops in every town on the way which takes around 3 hours.

From Cordoba by bus: It’s the same bus that passes through Carlos Paz, just about an hour before and costs more – check with Sarmiento.

From Cordoba by train: Take the scenic train (tren de las Sierras) from Alta Cordoba station to Cosquin (2300 ARS, 3 hours) and than take another train to Capilla (2300 ARS, 2 hours). It’s not the quickest, but by far the cheapest and hey, you can use the time to write posts for your travel blog 😉 See exact itinerary in their website. No need to book in advance, you pay on the train.

What is there to do in Capilla del Monte

El Zapato to Pirámide del Uritorco + Dique El Cajón

A short walk from the main square (20 mins for the shoe, 15 more for the dam). You’ll see a cool rock formation in the form of a shoe, later a spiritual peak with a pyramid and some sculptures, finishing with a cool viewpoint from the dam into Lago el Cajón.

Ollas de Uritorco

Just below Cerro Uritorco, the highest peak of the sierras, lies a series of bathing “Ollas” (pots). They are really nice and refreshing! The walk from town takes about an hour, you might be able to hitchike. At sunset there is a cool view on the mountain.

Feeling like an Alien baby

Aliens have put Capilla on the tourist’s map, and you can find murals, street sculptures and many stores selling alien merchandise. We found it really funny and cute. La Pirámide Misteriosa on the way to Uritorco is a quirky place that was unfortunetly closed when we got there (so note opening hours).

Events and workshops

On que_hay_capilla you can get all up-to-date info about music, workshops and other events taking place in town. The local tourist info (located just at the entrance to the train station) has flyers and info about concerts, markets and other events, and are generally really nice and helpful 🙂

Other ideas and resources

• Hike cerro uritorco to it’s peak
• Agua de los Palos: a private reservoir around Cerro las Gemalas that offers a restaurant, tracking to the peak (9500 ARS) and horseback riding (12000 ARS).
• More cool tips about hikes in the area at Mate Viajero’s blog

Food and drinks

• La Esquina Libre de Gluten: Amazing gluten-free bakery. I tasted and loved the walnut blue cheese empanadas (1300 ARS) and Chipá (the Argentinian name for pan de queso / cuñape), 1500 ARS for 100g.
• Heladeria La Fresh: The chocolate uritorco (with nuts and raisins) was yummy!

Where to stay in Capilla del Monte

We stayed at Puerta Azul (Google Maps, Booking.com) which was well located and clean but had somewhat of a strange vibe when we were there (not sure why). There are other hostels that look nice around town.

Third Stop: San Marcos Sierras

The smallest of all the stops in our journey, the 7000 inhabitants town was not connected by a paved road till 20 years ago. For its seclusion and abundant nature, it attracted hippies from all over Argentina in the dark decades 1970s and considered the first hippie colony in the country. The Gauchos (with their horses and traditional clothing) and the hippies got along pretty well and co-exist till today.

Still much of a hippie place, the town hall is pink, many houses have murals and mandalas, there are small artesan shops and stands everywhere, barefoot children play in the river and time seems to pass by in a different rhythm.

It’s also the capital of honey: if you are there in February, check out the honey festival! If not, enjoy quality honey for less than 5000 ARS per kilo (!).

How to get to San Marcos Sierras

From Capilla del Monte, one daily bus (Sarmiento, 50 minutes) leaves at 11:20 and costs 5600 ARS.

It’s also considered easy to hitchhike (“hacer dedo” in Argentinian slang) between both places – first hitch on ruta 38 towards cruz de eje until the entrance to the village, and than from the intersection the village itself. We did this on the way back to Capilla, as the only daily bus back leaves at 16:37 (too late to catch the train from Capilla to Córdoba the same day).

What is there to do in San Marcos Sierras

• Visit Rio San Marcos: The river is the heart of the town. You’ll find children playing, people practicing Tai Chi, and drinking mate. The most popular strip is near the Camping Municipal, but the places further up the river are less muddy and much nicer, with large stones surrounding it. It’s very shallow in most areas.
• Hike up to Cerro de la Cruz: Just half an hour from the main square, a really nice viewpoint of the town. It gets windy here, so if you stay late, bring some layers. On the way you’ll pass San Marcos Pie (see below) where you can stop for a beer, lemonade and sometimes live music.
• Visit the Hippie Museum: Daniel founded this museum about 25 years ago and claims it’s the only hippie museum in the world. The entry is 7000 ARS and includes a one-hour tour with him where he shows different artifacts from key moments in the history of the hippie movement in the world, in Argentina, and in San Marcos Sierras.
  Though some of the content was not very interesting (a lot of name-dropping), Daniel is an interesting character and between the lines you can really hear a piece of history and counter-culture. Don’t hesitate to ask him questions – this was when the most interesting stuff came. You can find it here in Google Maps.
• Artesan shopping at Túneles Vegetales: This area has a lot of artesans, cafes, and cute shops. Try to get your hands on a map where all of them are marked, or just go for a curious stroll. Here in Google Maps.
• Hike to Rio Quilpo: About 4km from town (we heard it’s quite easy to hitchike but haven’t tried), near the municipal camping and further along, the river is deep and you can often have it for yourself. Here in Google Maps.

Food and drink in San Marcos Sierras

• San Marcos Pie: Really cool view and atmosphere, great for a beer or a pie (pies are not gluten-free but they have some options like mantecol – snack from peanuts). Sometimes they also have live music!
• Heladería El Jardín has unique flavors (similar to Babulu in San Pedro de Atacama). Mousse the chañar was our personal favorite!
• Picnic on rio San Marcos: Get some local olives (the goat cheese was underwhelming) and drinks and enjoy the sunset picnic on the river.

Where to stay in San Marcos Sierras

We stayed at Tay Pichin (Google Maps, Booking.com – the name means “beautiful place” in quechua), an ecological project serving as a hostel for 4 years now. It features a veggie and herbs garden and an option to evaluate creative bio construction in the making. It’s a sturdy hike up from town, and there were no other guests at the time of our stay.

We saw other hostels in town, as well as the municipal campsite located just on the river.

Other Stops in the Cordillera

• Cosquín: This village in the Punilla Valley has a famous folklore festival in January and Cosquín Rock festival in February
• Parque nacional Quebrada del Condorito: Many hikes and chance to see condors
• Alta Gracia: Che Guevara’s birthplace
• Villa General Belgrano: Founded by germans, it’s known for it’s beer and Octoberfest
• Laguna Mar Chiquita, mirmar
• Another hippie region: Tranlasierras
  • San Javier
  • Villa de las Rosas

If you found other nice places in the Cordoba region, please share in the comments! If you liked this post, consider buying us a coffee, it’s the fuel of the backpacker 🙂