🇦🇷 Argentina · The North
Cabra Corral is Salta's great inland sea: an enormous reservoir formed by the General Belgrano dam on the Juramento river, a little over an hour from the city of Salta. With its huge expanse of blue water ringed by hills, it is the province's main boating and fishing destination and one of the favorite escapes for locals looking to beat the heat, get out on the water and spend the day outdoors.
The reservoir is a paradise for anyone who loves water: you can do it all here, from sailing, kayaking, windsurfing and jet skis to sport fishing (it is famous for pejerrey, the silverside, and other species), by way of the thrill of rafting on the Juramento river downstream of the dam. For the bold, there is even bungee jumping from a bridge over the water. And for those after calm, its beaches, its resorts and its sunsets over the lake make a perfect plan for doing nothing.
This guide covers the essentials of Cabra Corral with a practical, friendly eye: boating and fishing, rafting on the Juramento, the beaches and the resorts, how to get there from Salta and how to combine it with the Calchaquí Valleys. It is the watery, sporting face of northern Argentina, a refreshing contrast with the hills and the valleys, and a good addition to any trip through Salta.
The Juramento river region, where the Cabra Corral reservoir stands today, has its place in Argentine history: on its banks, General Manuel Belgrano had his troops swear allegiance to the national flag for the first time in February 1813, an episode that gave the river its name (it had previously been called the Pasaje). In pre-Hispanic times the area was inhabited by peoples of the Lerma valley and the Calchaquí Valleys, and through the colonial period it was a land of haciendas and estancias. The great change came in the 20th century with the building of the General Belgrano dam (popularly known as the Cabra Corral dam), a major piece of engineering on the Juramento river, built between 1966 and 1972 and inaugurated on 15 April 1972, designed to control the river's floods, generate hydroelectric power and supply water for irrigation. The dam formed one of the largest reservoirs in northwestern Argentina, a vast sheet of water that soon became the province's main center for recreation, boating and fishing. In the decades that followed, inns, resorts, campsites and boat clubs grew up along its shores, and rafting on the Juramento river was added downstream of the dam, cementing Cabra Corral as a destination for nature and water sports. The full story is on our history page.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The largest lake in Salta hides two secrets in its name: the river that feeds it is called Juramento —oath— because on its banks an entire army swore allegiance to the Argentine flag for the first time, and 'Cabra Corral' is in fact a translation mistake that stuck forever. Long before the reservoir existed, the protagonist of this story was the river we now know as the Juramento and which for centuries was called the río Pasaje. It rises from the meeting of rivers coming down from Salta's valleys and crosses the province heading east, marking a natural boundary and a crossing point —hence its old name, 'Pasaje', or passage— on the region's roads.
The Lerma valley and the Calchaquí Valleys, of which this region forms part, were inhabited from pre-Hispanic times by peoples of Diaguita-Calchaquí stock and by valley communities, farmers and herders who used the rivers' water to grow crops and raise animals. The mark of these peoples is present in archaeological sites throughout the area.
After the Spanish conquest and through the colonial period, the region organized itself around haciendas and estancias that made use of the land and the waters of the río Pasaje for farming and livestock. The river was both a resource and an obstacle: a source of life for the crops, but also a watercourse that had to be crossed and that, when it flooded, could turn dangerous. That relationship with the river would shape its history until the 20th century, when a great piece of engineering transformed it completely.
The episode that gave the river its name and that connects this landscape with the country's history took place in the thick of the war of independence. On 13 February 1813, General Manuel Belgrano, at the head of the Army of the North marching toward the battle of Salta (fought barely a week later, on 20 February), had his troops swear allegiance to the national flag for the first time on the banks of the río Pasaje, as the army crossed on its way north. That solemn act, in which the soldiers swore loyalty to the new standard Belgrano had created, was a moment charged with symbolism on the road to independence.
In tribute to that oath, the río Pasaje came to be called the río Juramento, the name it keeps today. The episode was engraved in the historical memory of the region and the country, and gave identity to this whole stretch of Salta. Belgrano's campaign in the north —with his victories at Tucumán and Salta— is a fundamental part of the story of Argentine independence, and this river is one of its settings.
That historical weight explains why both the river and the great dam built a century and a half later carry names tied to Belgrano and to the oath. Visitors who come to Cabra Corral for the water and the sport are standing, without knowing it, on ground where the flag that is now the nation's symbol was sworn to for the first time.
The region's great transformation came in the 20th century with the building of the General Belgrano dam, one of the major works of hydraulic engineering in northwestern Argentina. The idea of damming the water went back decades —a project for the area had already been proposed under governor Luis Patrón Costas (1936-1940)—, but the works were only carried out between 1966 and 1972: they began during Arturo Illia's presidency and the dam was inaugurated on 15 April 1972. Raised on the Juramento river, it served several purposes at once: controlling the river's floods (which in the rainy season could be devastating), generating hydroelectric power, supplying water to irrigate farmland and serving the wider region.
The works created an enormous reservoir of some 2,880 cubic hectometers, one of the largest in the northwest, popularly known as the Cabra Corral dam, whose waters covered extensive land in the Juramento river valley. The name, curiously, was born of a mistake: the spot was called 'Corral de Cabras' (goat pen), but the American company in charge of the topographical surveys wrote it the wrong way round on its plans as 'Cabra Corral', and so Salta's most famous lake was christened for good. What had been a watercourse hard to cross and hard to tame became an immense, placid sheet of blue water, ringed by hills, able to store and manage the water resources of the whole basin.
The dam changed the look and the economy of the area: it regulated the river's regime, made farming possible downstream and generated power, but it also opened an unexpected possibility that would end up defining its future as a tourist destination. That great artificial lake, a little over an hour from the city of Salta, was destined to become the province's main center for recreation and water sports.
Once the reservoir had formed, its recreational potential became obvious. The huge sheet of water, its closeness to the city of Salta and its setting among hills quickly made it the place locals chose to escape the heat, sail, fish and spend time outdoors. In a few decades Cabra Corral went from hydraulic works to the province's main boating and fishing destination.
Inns, resorts, campsites, bathing spots and boat clubs grew up along the shores, providing the infrastructure for the growing tourist trade. Sport fishing —especially for pejerrey— won fame and drew anglers from across the region, with tournaments and competitions. Boating in all its forms (sailing, motorboats, kayaks, windsurfing, water skiing) found an ideal setting on the great lake.
Over time the offering diversified: downstream of the dam, the Juramento river proved an excellent stage for rafting, adding the adventure of moving water to the calm of the reservoir. Activities such as bungee jumping appeared too. Cabra Corral established itself as a nature and water sports destination that perfectly complements Salta's traditional draws —the city, the valleys, the puna— by supplying its refreshing, sporting side.
The stretch of the Juramento river downstream of the dam, the setting for rafting, cuts through a landscape of canyons and colored hills that holds another fascinating dimension: the paleontological one. The Juramento valley region is known for its fossil beds and for finds of dinosaur bones and tracks, evidence of the creatures that lived on this land millions of years ago, when the landscape looked very different.
The canyon's geological formations —with their layers of rock of different colors and ages— tell the deep history of the Earth in this part of northern Argentina, and in some sectors traces and ichnites (fossil footprints) have been identified that draw the interest of paleontologists and visitors alike. This dimension adds natural and scientific value to a run down the river.
So the surroundings of Cabra Corral combine very different layers of history: the geological and paleontological, from millions of years ago; the pre-Hispanic, of the valley's peoples; the national, with the oath to the flag in 1813; the engineering of the 20th century, with the dam; and the tourism of the present. All of them coexist on this great Salta sheet of water, at once a natural, historical and sporting setting, and one of the places the people of Salta hold dearest.