Cloud Forest Hiking in San Lorenzo: A Yungas Morning Near Salta

The morning opens cool and humid, the kind of cool that seeps into your sleeves and makes you breathe a little slower. A narrow dirt track winds between tree ferns and stands of Polylepis, leaves beaded with condensation. Birdsong threads through the fog—sharp, bright warbles—and the guide, bilingual and steady-footed, points out bromeliads clinging to trunks like green cups. In groups of no more than four, the hike moves at a deliberately human pace: conversation, observation, a pause to listen. After two hours of walking, empanadas appear on a blanket and the valley below unfurls, a patchwork of red-tile roofs and irrigated fields under the Andes’ foothills.