🇦🇷 Argentina · The North
A few kilometres from San Salvador de Jujuy, hidden in a mountain canyon covered in yungas cloud forest, the Termas de Reyes are one of the loveliest and most relaxing corners of northwestern Argentina. It is the place where hot water rising from the earth meets the intense green of subtropical vegetation, the waterfalls of the Reyes river and the cool air of the gorge, in a combination that wins over everyone who arrives.
The complex, presided over by a historic mountain hotel, offers pools of mineral thermal water, spa services and the chance to bathe in a privileged natural setting, ringed by hills and the exuberance of the yungas. It is a destination for rest and wellbeing, ideal to combine with a visit to the Jujuy capital and the province's great attractions, such as the Quebrada de Humahuaca.
This guide covers the essentials of Termas de Reyes with a practical eye: how to get there from the capital, when to go, what the thermal complex offers, how to enjoy the waters and the yungas setting, and where to sleep and eat. It is the gateway to Jujuy's thermal tradition and an oasis of calm high in the mountains.
The name says it all: the Andean curacas ('kings') of Casabindo came to these sacred waters along the Inca Road in search of wellbeing, and the Spanish conquistadors named the place Termas de los Reyes. After centuries of local use, modern development arrived in the 1930s: in 1932 the Italian immigrant Mazueli built the first house facing the spring, in 1933 the present cliffside road was opened and in November 1938 the Gran Hotel Casino Termas de Reyes opened, the work of the Córdoba architect Jaime Roca, built with stones carried up on muleback. The hotel passed to the Eva Perón Foundation (a residential school from 1946), reopened in 1958, closed in 1975 and was completely refurbished after being privatised in 1999. Today it is one of the most emblematic thermal destinations in northern Argentina. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The northernmost province, the Andean roof of Argentina: land of the Quebrada de Humahuaca and the Inca road, of the Omaguaca pucarás, of the heroic Jujuy Exodus of 1812 and of the sugar mills, with a living Andean culture of carnival, coplas and seven-colored hills.
Read the history of Jujuy →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before a stately hotel looked out over the gorge, this water was already a matter for kings. Literally: according to a tradition recorded since colonial times, the curacas —the Indigenous chiefs who governed the peoples of the Jujuy puna under the rule of the Inca Empire— came to these hot springs from Casabindo, in the Cochinoca department, some 150 kilometres to the north. They travelled the empire's celebrated road network, the Qhapaq Ñan or Inca Road, in search of bodily wellbeing, and they held these waters to have magical powers and a sacred character. When the Spanish conquistadors reached the area, they took up that reference and named the place 'Termas de los Reyes'. Usage shortened it: Termas de Reyes.
The region of today's San Salvador de Jujuy and the Reyes river gorge was, long before the conquest, the territory of Andean peoples. Jujuy was an area of great cultural complexity, at the crossroads of the high puna, the temperate valleys and the yungas cloud forest that covers the eastern slopes. Peoples of Omaguaca and Atacama root, along with other Andean groups, lived and moved through there, in contact with the great cultures of the altiplano.
These peoples knew and used the resources of the mountains, among them the hot springs that surface at various points across the northwest thanks to the geothermal activity of the Andes. The thermal waters of Reyes, which centuries later would make the place famous, have their roots in that ancestral knowledge of the land: the tourist who slips into the pools today repeats, without knowing it, a rite more than five hundred years old.
The city of San Salvador de Jujuy was founded in 1593 by Francisco de Argañarás y Murguía, after several earlier attempts were thwarted by Indigenous resistance. The city was established at a strategic point on the road linking the Río de la Plata with Alto Perú (today's Bolivia and, beyond it, the mining centre of Potosí), which made it a key staging post on the Camino Real through the colonial period.
Through the colonial era and the wars of independence, Jujuy was a frontier city, the scene of conflict and of one celebrated act of heroism: the Jujuy Exodus of 1812, when, on the orders of General Manuel Belgrano, the entire population abandoned the city and destroyed anything that might serve the enemy, in order to slow the royalist advance. That feat is one of the great landmarks of Jujuy history.
The Reyes river gorge and its settlement lay close to the colonial city, part of its immediate natural surroundings. The hot springs there went on being known and visited —by the late 19th century there were already rough facilities for bathers— but organised tourist use would come only in the 20th century.
The great natural draw of Reyes is its hot springs, which come out of the mountain at high temperature as a result of the geothermal activity of the Andes. These mineral waters, channelled into pools and present in the river's natural waterfalls, have traditionally been valued for their relaxing properties and for the wellbeing that soaking in them produces.
What makes the place exceptional is its setting: the springs sit in the middle of the yungas cloud forest, a humid subtropical ecosystem covering the eastern slopes of the Jujuy mountains. The yungas is a green, exuberant world of tall trees, ferns, lianas and enormous biodiversity, very different from the arid image many people associate with the northwest.
The gorge of the Reyes river, up which the road to the springs climbs, combines walls of forest, waterfalls and the flow of the river coming down from the mountains. That conjunction of hot thermal water and cool subtropical forest is what sets Termas de Reyes apart from other thermal centres in the country, and what captivated the people who developed it as a destination.
The leap of the Termas de Reyes from a bathers' spot to a first-rate destination took barely six years, and it was a feat of mountain engineering. In 1932, an Italian immigrant by the name of Mazueli put up a wooden house facing the thermal spring: he was the pioneer of lodging at the site. The following year, in 1933, landslides forced the abandonment of the old access route along the Reyes river and work began on the difficult construction of a new road, the present one, which climbs the cliffsides and winds between the hills.
On that foundation the greater work went up: the Gran Hotel Casino Termas de Reyes, designed by the Córdoba architect Jaime Roca together with the master builder Santiago Lucarde. The stones for its construction were carried up the gorge on muleback, and the bricks came from the Guerrero brickworks. In November 1938 the hotel opened with a grand reception: it was one of the few grand tourist hotels in Argentina outside Buenos Aires, casino included, and it put the Jujuy springs on the map of national tourism.
The building's later history tracked the country's swings. In 1946 it began operating as a residential school for children, under the Eva Perón Foundation. Restored, it reopened as a hotel in 1958 —that year it hosted an international Rotary congress— and in 1960 its casino started up again. In 1975 it closed its doors and spent decades with its splendour switched off, until in 1999 it was leased to a local company, Las Almonas S.A., which took on the full refurbishment that turned it into today's four-star hotel and thermal spa.
Today Termas de Reyes is still one of the most emblematic thermal destinations in northwestern Argentina and a classic of what Jujuy has to offer visitors. The complex, with its thermal pools at 35 to 40 degrees, its spa services and its historic 1938 hotel, draws people looking for rest, wellbeing and contact with the unique setting of the yungas cloud forest and the Reyes river gorge.
Its closeness to San Salvador de Jujuy —barely 19 kilometres— makes it an easy getaway, ideal both for a day visit and for a stay of several nights. Many travellers combine it with a tour of the Jujuy capital and of the province's great attractions, such as the Quebrada de Humahuaca, declared a World Heritage Site in 2003.
The history of Termas de Reyes sums up that of nature and wellbeing tourism in northern Argentina rather well: sacred waters visited by the Andean 'kings' since the days of the Inca Empire, a 19th-century bathers' spot, a grand 1930s hotel casino built with materials carried on muleback, and a present of spa treatments and thermal pools that keeps its greatest treasure intact: the combination of hot water, lush forest and mountains that makes it unmistakable.