Tolar Grande

If alien landscapes and lost oases are your thing, take a couple of days to venture out towards gorgeous Tolar Grande. Now while the small village itself (charming as it may be) is likely nothing you'd write home about on its own, the surrounding countryside happens to be a chunk of barren land known as the Salar de Arizaro. This is your off-the-beaten-path finding, 4-wheel drive riding jackpot. Think barren, pink hued clay, mineral deposits, conical, Dali-esque sandstone "mountains" like the Cono de Arita and even some pockets of deep blue water and isolated oases that make the experience all the more surreal. Excursions to one of the world's largest salt flats (which is what this is, by the way) are best experienced over the course of at least 2 days, and you'd do well to hire the services of a guide as the desert isn't named the Labyrinth for nothing.