Qualla: Mina Clavero

Mina Clavero: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Jones Adam63, CC BY-SA 3.0. There are beaches here, hundreds of kilometres from any ocean. The Mina Clavero river runs cold and clear out of the Sierras Grandes, and where it slows it spreads into pools edged with golden sand and smooth rock. On a summer day the banks fill with families and the water with swimmers, and it is easy to forget you are in the mountains of central Argentina rather than on a coast. In 2019 the country agreed the river was something special, voting it one of Argentina's seven natural wonders. The town that grew up around it is the bright, busy heart of the Traslasierra valley.

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Image: Adam Jones Adam63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mina Clavero: Crystalline Water, Golden Sand

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fernandopascullo, CC BY 3.0. The river is the reason Mina Clavero exists as it does. Born from streams high on the Pampa de Achala, it tumbles down through the valley, carving small waterfalls and natural basins as it goes, then bends north at the edge of town to meet the Panaholma and form the Río de los Sa...

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Image: Fernandopascullo | CC BY 3.0

Mina Clavero: Caciques, Miners, and a Saint

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taken by the uploader, Roberto Fiadone, CC BY-SA 3.0. The valley's name reaches back to the Comechingones, the people who lived here in independent clans, each under its own cacique. One of them, Milac Navira, led the clan whose land became Mina Clavero, and many believe the town's name descends from his. Others trace it to a coloni...

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Image: Taken by the uploader, Roberto Fiadone | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mina Clavero: The Condor of Traslasierra

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roberto Fiadone, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mina Clavero is rally country, and it produced the sport's Argentine hero. Jorge Raúl Recalde was born here in 1951, a driver they called El Cóndor de Traslasierra. In 1988, behind the wheel of a Lancia Delta Integrale, he became the only Argentine ever to win the Rally Argentina...

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Image: Roberto Fiadone | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mina Clavero: 320 Days of Sun

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taken by the uploader, Roberto Fiadone, CC BY-SA 3.0. Set at 915 metres between the Achala and Pocho ranges, Mina Clavero claims a microclimate of its own - dry, bright, and famously sunny, with cool nights and, by local count, around 320 sunny days a year. The terrain invites every kind of motion: trekking, horseback riding, climbi...

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Image: Taken by the uploader, Roberto Fiadone | CC BY-SA 3.0