🇦🇷 Argentina · Córdoba and the Center
Mina Clavero is the tourist heart of the Traslasierra Valley, on the far side of the Sierras Grandes of Córdoba, and probably the destination with the most water in the whole province. Three rivers run through town — the Mina Clavero, the Panaholma and the Los Sauces — along with countless streams that carve natural pools, slides and waterfalls into the rock. It's no accident that the Mina Clavero River was voted one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Argentina: here, water is the star of the summer.
The town is small and easy to walk. From the central bridge you can reach famous swimming spots in a few minutes, such as El Nido del Águila, where rock walls up to 22 meters high box in the river and form deep pools, or quieter stretches like Los Elefantes (also called Los Cajones) and La Toma, a genuine natural water park of stone potholes and slides. It's a destination built for family downtime, with sandy beaches, cold sierra water and a long tradition of Argentine summer holidays.
But Mina Clavero is much more than the river. It's the ideal base for exploring Traslasierra: a few kilometers away is Nono, with the astonishing Rocsen Museum; the legendary Camino de los Túneles, a 1930s feat of engineering that crosses the Pampa de Pocho between extinct volcanoes and palm groves; the Camino de las Altas Cumbres, which climbs to the Pampa de Achala and Quebrada del Condorito National Park; and the approaches to Cerro Champaquí, the highest peak in Córdoba. River by day, sierras and scenic roads the rest of the time: that mix is what keeps Mina Clavero a classic that never goes out of style.
The Traslasierra Valley was home to the Comechingones (their local groups, the tinquinas), who farmed the land with irrigation channels and left their mark on the name of the place. Tradition says the area was called Milac Navira, after a local chief, and that the present name derived from it; another version holds that it comes from an old 'Mina de Clavero', a mining operation linked to the Clavero family, a common surname in the district. As a settlement, Mina Clavero has existed for more than four centuries, but with no firm founding date. In 1887 Cura Brochero persuaded Doña Anastasia Fabre de Merlo to open the first guesthouse, the founding gesture of local tourism; the municipality was created in 1928 and October 11 — the day Doña Anastasia died, in 1946 — was adopted as the date of the town's spiritual and symbolic founding. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The landlocked province of sierras and rivers: Comechingón land founded by Cabrera in 1573, seat of the oldest university in the country and of the great Jesuit legacy, cradle of the University Reform and of the Cordobazo, capital of sierra tourism and of cuarteto.
Read the history of Córdoba →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the town existed, the Traslasierra Valley — the one that lies 'on the far side' of the Sierras Grandes, seen from Córdoba — was inhabited by the Comechingones, the most widespread native people of the Córdoba sierras. Their local groups, known as tinquinas, lived in this district and settled in what are now Mina Clavero, Cañada Larga, Niña Paula and La Gloria. They were farmers: they worked the land in the damp spots, dug channels and irrigation ditches, and sowed maize, squash, beans, quinoa and sweet potato. They also raised animals, made pottery and, by tradition, worshipped the sun and the moon. Their bond with water and with the sierra rivers shaped the character of this place forever.
Much of the mystery around the name comes from that indigenous root. The area is said to have once been called Milac Navira, after a powerful local chief, and the translation of that name evoked 'turbulent waters' or the 'rock of the rising water' — a description anyone who has seen the river squeezed between the rock walls recognizes at once. Over the centuries, according to one version, 'Milac Navira' was gradually worn down into 'Mina Clavero'. The town's name, then, holds the echo of its first inhabitants and of the water that defines it.
Around 1573, when the Traslasierra Valley was still inhabited by the Comechingones, the first Spanish expeditions arrived to explore the settlements and look for minerals and treasure. But unlike so many Argentine towns that have a founding deed and a date, Mina Clavero has existed as a settlement for more than four centuries without a firm birthday. For a long time it was barely a handful of scattered houses in a valley of rivers, far from the main roads.
The great push came from a much-loved figure in Córdoba: Father José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, the famous 'Gaucho Priest' of Traslasierra. Born on March 16, 1840 near Santa Rosa de Río Primero, he was ordained in 1866 and in 1869 was appointed vicar of the whole San Alberto department, a territory of some 10,000 inhabitants that took in all of Traslasierra. He settled in Villa del Tránsito — today Villa Cura Brochero, a few kilometers from Mina Clavero — and with his own hands and the work of his parishioners built churches and chapels, raised schools and opened roads through the sierras. In old age he caught leprosy through his contact with the sick, whom he visited and with whom he even shared mate, which left him deaf and blind before he died in 1914. Rome recognized that devotion: he was declared venerable in 2004, beatified in 2013 and canonized by Pope Francis on October 16, 2016, becoming the first saint born, raised and deceased in Argentina.
It was this same priest who, in 1887, persuaded Doña Anastasia Fabre de Merlo to open a guesthouse in Mina Clavero, the first in town, sowing the seed of its tourist vocation. Decades later, on May 1, 1928, the municipality was created, giving the community an institutional shape. And when Doña Anastasia died, on October 11, 1946, that day was adopted as the date of Mina Clavero's spiritual and symbolic founding, in tribute to the woman who opened the town's doors to the first travelers.
If anything defines Mina Clavero, it's water. The town is crossed by three rivers and countless streams, which over time made it the destination with the most watercourses in the whole province of Córdoba. The Mina Clavero River rises in the Altas Cumbres with cold, crystal-clear water that comes down the mountain; at the level of the town it merges with the milder water of the Panaholma River, which drops from the Pampa de Achala, and together they give rise to a third arm, the Los Sauces River. That network of channels carved pools, potholes, natural slides and waterfalls into the rock, which are today the famous swimming spots of the area.
Starting from Doña Anastasia's first guesthouse, the summer trade kept growing. Argentine families discovered the sandy beaches, the sierra water and the coolness of the valley, and Mina Clavero became one of the country's great classics of river tourism. Swimming spots such as El Nido del Águila — with its walls up to 22 meters high —, La Toma and Los Elefantes became famous. The greatest recognition came when the Mina Clavero River was voted one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Argentina, a seal that confirmed what summer visitors already knew: that water is, here, the real treasure.
The geography of Traslasierra — a valley closed in by the imposing wall of the Sierras Grandes — always made getting in and out of Mina Clavero a challenge. Out of that came two of the most impressive road works in Córdoba. The first is the Camino de los Túneles: a feat of engineering undertaken in the 1930s to connect the province of Córdoba with La Rioja, crossing the mountain through five tunnels dug into the rock. Leaving Mina Clavero towards Taninga, the road (today RP28) crosses the Pampa de Pocho, a startling region of palm groves and extinct volcanoes whose eroded cones rise from the plain, and offers cliffside views that take your breath away. Around it survives a patch of Córdoba's native woodland, with algarrobo, quebracho and caranday palms, and wildlife including pumas, guanacos and more than a hundred and fifty bird species.
The second great route is the Camino de las Altas Cumbres, the scenic road (RP34) that links Mina Clavero with the rest of Córdoba by climbing to the Pampa de Achala, the roof of the sierras. Winding and grand in scenery, it gives access to the source of the Mina Clavero River — with its waterfall of some hundred meters — and to Quebrada del Condorito National Park, where Andean condors glide. These routes are not just roads: they are attractions in their own right, and they turned Mina Clavero from a remote village into one of the most visited sierra destinations in Argentina, telling in every bend and every tunnel the story of the effort to beat the mountain.
A few kilometers away, in the neighboring town of Nono, another personal story completed the map of local attractions. The Frenchman Juan Santiago Bouchon, born in Nice in 1928 and trained in anthropology and fine arts in Paris, came to Argentina in 1950 and settled in Nono in 1959. Ten years later, on January 6, 1969, he opened the Rocsen Museum in barely 100 square meters — Rocsen means 'holy rock' in Celtic, the name of a family property lost during the Second World War — and began pouring into it the objects from his travels around the world. The museum never closed for a single day until Bouchon's death on February 1, 2019, just weeks after marking, on January 6, its first 50 years of uninterrupted life. Now run by the Fundación M. Rocsen that Bouchon himself created, it brings together more than 65,000 pieces across more than a hundred different themes, and remains, alongside the water of Mina Clavero, one of the great reasons to visit this corner of Traslasierra.