🇦🇷 Argentina · The North
Molinos is one of those villages that seem to have stopped in time. Set in the Salta stretch of the Valles Calchaquíes, on the legendary National Route 40 and at about 2,000 meters, it's a handful of adobe houses, dirt streets and silence, ringed by multicolored hills and the green of the crops beside the river. Its name comes from the old flour mills that ran on the water, and everything about it breathes colonial history and Calchaquí rural life.
Its jewel is the church of San Pedro Nolasco de los Molinos, one of the loveliest and oldest in the valleys, with thick adobe walls and cardón cactus-wood ceilings, which holds a singular relic: the mummy of the last royalist governor of Tucumán, Nicolás Severo de Isasmendi, whose mansion — now an inn — presides over the village. Add the vicuña breeding center, the weaving looms, and high-altitude vineyards that produce extreme wines, among the highest in the world at nearby wineries such as Colomé.
This guide covers the essentials of Molinos with a practical, warm eye: its church and its history, the adobe village, the vicuña breeding center, the wines and looms of the area, how to get there on Route 40 and how to fit it into a trip through the Valles Calchaquíes. It's a stop for slowing down, getting to know the most authentic, deep-rooted Salta, and letting the landscape and the silence of the valleys wrap around you.
The Molinos area was inhabited from pre-Hispanic times by the Diaguita-Calchaquí peoples, farmers and potters of the valleys, who fiercely resisted the Spanish conquest in the so-called Calchaquí Wars of the 17th century. After the Calchaquíes were subdued, the region was parceled out into encomiendas and gradually filled with haciendas and chapels. The village of Molinos takes its name from the flour mills that worked beside the river, driven by the force of the water. Its church, dedicated to San Pedro Nolasco, dates from the 18th century (with origins around 1720) and is one of the oldest and most characteristic in the Valles Calchaquíes, with its adobe walls and its roof of cardón cactus wood. The key historical figure of Molinos is Nicolás Severo de Isasmendi, the last royalist governor of Tucumán in the years of independence and owner of the local hacienda; his naturally mummified body is preserved in the village church, and his old mansion is today an inn. Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Molinos remained a farming and livestock village of the valleys, tied to raising animals (vicuñas among them), to weaving and, later, to the high-altitude viticulture that made the area famous with wineries such as nearby Colomé. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Salta la Linda: the colonial jewel of the northwest, Diaguita land of the Calchaquí Valleys, setting of Güemes and his gaucho war, of the high-altitude wines of Cafayate and of the legendary Tren a las Nubes.
Read the history of Salta →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In the half-light of an adobe church in the Valles Calchaquíes, inside a wooden sarcophagus covered with a pane of glass, the mummified body of the last royalist governor of Tucumán, who died in 1837, lies in plain view of any visitor. Few villages in the world live with their history quite so literally as Molinos, this Salta hamlet on Route 40 where the past isn't in books: it's in the nave of the church, in the mud walls and in the hills that surround it. But to understand how that scene came about you have to start much earlier.
Long before the village of Molinos existed, the Valles Calchaquíes were inhabited by the Diaguita peoples, and in particular by the Calchaquí groups that gave the region its name. They were advanced farming societies that grew maize, squash, beans and quinoa on terraces watered by sophisticated channel systems, raised llamas and were remarkable potters and weavers. They lived in stone and adobe settlements spread through the valleys, making use of the rivers and the fertility of the low ground between the hills.
These peoples were part of a wide Andean world that had received, in its last pre-Hispanic stretch, the influence of the Inca Empire, which extended its rule to this region along the Inca Road. The material culture of the Calchaquíes — their pottery, their funerary urns, their textiles — speaks of a rich and complex civilization, deeply tied to the land and to the farming cycles.
The Molinos area, with its irrigable land beside the river and its altitude of about 2,000 meters, was part of that territory, inhabited and farmed since remote times. The mark of the native peoples is still present in the region through the archaeological sites, the traditional farming practices, the breeding of camelids and the mixed Calchaquí identity that endures among its people.
The conquest of the Valles Calchaquíes was one of the hardest and longest of the whole Spanish conquest in what is now Argentina. The Calchaquí peoples resisted the Spanish advance for more than a century in the so-called Calchaquí Wars, a series of uprisings and campaigns that ran through the 16th and, above all, the 17th century. The geography of the valleys — with their hills, ravines and fortified settlements — favored a stubborn resistance.
The last great uprising, around the middle of the 17th century, was led by a singular figure: a Spanish adventurer who passed himself off as a descendant of the Incas and managed to unite the Calchaquí communities in a final rebellion against colonial rule. Spanish repression was brutal: after breaking the resistance, the authorities scattered the Calchaquí peoples, uprooting them from their valleys and moving them by force to other regions, a traumatic episode that marked the end of indigenous autonomy in the area.
Once the valley was subdued, the region was divided among the conquerors in the form of encomiendas and land grants, and gradually filled with haciendas, chapels and criollo hamlets. It was within that colonial framework, on land once occupied by the Calchaquíes, that the village of Molinos would in time be born, heir to that long history of encounter and conflict between two worlds.
The name of the village says it all: Molinos owes its name to the old flour mills (molinos) that worked here, driven by the force of the water from the rivers and channels running down from the hills. In the colonial and criollo economy of the valleys, milling grain — especially wheat and maize — was a fundamental activity, and water mills were key pieces of rural life. The hamlet took shape around that activity and around the local haciendas.
Through the 17th and 18th centuries, on the land parceled out after the conquest, farming and livestock haciendas developed in the region, worked by indigenous and criollo labor. The building of the church, in the early 18th century (with origins placed around 1720), gave the village its religious center and one of the loveliest colonial temples in the valleys, with its adobe walls and its roof of cardón cactus wood. The church, dedicated to San Pedro Nolasco, was in time declared a National Historic Monument.
Molinos thus grew as a typical village of the Valles Calchaquíes: dirt streets, adobe houses, a square, a church and a rural economy based on irrigated farming, livestock and traditional crafts such as weaving. That colonial shape, remarkably well preserved, is what still makes Molinos one of the most authentic and charming villages on the Route 40 run.
The history of Molinos is inseparable from the figure of Nicolás Severo de Isasmendi y Echalar (1753-1837), its most famous resident. Isasmendi owned the Molinos hacienda and was a figure of weight in the region at the end of the colonial period. His name went down in history because he was the last royalist governor of the Intendancy of Salta del Tucumán — that is, the last authority loyal to the Spanish Crown in the region, precisely in the turbulent years of the wars of independence.
In the context of the May Revolution of 1810 and the clashes between patriots and royalists, Isasmendi stayed on the side of the monarchy. After the independence process was consolidated, he withdrew to his Molinos hacienda, where he spent his last years. His figure embodies the divisions and personal dramas of that era, in which families and whole regions were split between loyalty to the king and the cause of independence.
What makes Isasmendi an almost tangible presence in the village is the fate of his body: when he died, in 1837, he was embalmed by his relatives and buried in the church of San Pedro Nolasco, where the dry, high-altitude climate completed the preservation. Today, almost two centuries later, his mummified body can be seen in a wooden sarcophagus covered with a pane of glass inside the village church, a historical detail as singular as it is moving, connecting this small valley hamlet with the great events of Argentine independence. His old mansion, facing the square, now works as an inn (Hacienda de Molinos).
Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Molinos remained a farming and livestock village of the Valles Calchaquíes, far from the big centers and the main roads, which paradoxically helped preserve its architecture and its traditional way of life. The local economy revolved around irrigated crops (fruit trees, vegetables, vines, grain), raising cattle and goats, and craft trades, especially loom weaving, a tradition deeply rooted across the whole region (the looms of neighboring Seclantás, birthplace of the Salta poncho, are famous).
A distinctive feature of Molinos is its link with the vicuña, the delicate Andean camelid whose wool is one of the finest and most valuable fibers in the world. Breeding and the sustainable management of vicuñas became an important activity in the area, through breeding centers and community projects that seek to preserve the species and generate income for the communities through very high quality textiles. It's an example of the traditional use of Andean resources.
In recent decades the region has seen the rise of high-altitude viticulture, which put the Valles Calchaquíes on the world wine map. Wineries such as nearby Colomé — one of the highest on the planet, with vineyards above 2,600 meters — produced extreme wines that gave the area international fame and drew wine tourism. So Molinos reaches the present as a village that keeps its colonial and rural essence intact while forming part of a valley known for its wines, its landscapes and its heritage, traveled every year by people driving the legendary Route 40.