Mendoza and Around, Argentina

On a long and exciting bus trip I left wind-blown Patagonia behind me. The bus trip involved the usual spectacular sunsets, but also some day-time highlights, such as spectacular accidents besides the road:

I was heading for the notorious city of Mendoza, which I already gave some premature praise and props in my last post. Well, the rumours turned out to be true: Mendoza is hot (in every meaning)!

You can imagine Mendoza as a little green oasis in the dessert,

located directly under Americas' (note the spelling) highest mountain, the Aconcagua (6962 m).

To say that Mendoza is an oasis is probably a little understatement. In fact, you feel like being in a huge forest or a park area in the entire city:

Well, not just Mendoza itself is located in a hot and dry climate, but it is also renown for hot women, which I quickly found out on an excursion to the Aconcagua National Park:

Believe me or not, but surrounded by all these pretty Latinas my Castellano suddenly worked out really well and fluent ;) I spent a day in Mendoza strolling around town, eating fine food, recreating from climbing, and partying with other travellers at night. Actually, I wanted to go up to Acongua's base camp for some hiking and camping. But everybody I met told me that I will only find a pure volcanic stone dessert up there and, unless I am interested in climbing the mountain itself, there's not a lot to do. So I decided to go for an organized round trip through the local mountains, which also brought me to Aconcagua:

Together with other hung over and bleary-eyed travellers I got on a minibus (way too early) which brought us via a curvy road (362 curves) up to high altitude. Of course, we had several scenic stops and I just couldn't resist the thought of descending with a bike...

Finally, we climbed the first Andes cordillera at 3500 m and had a spectacular view on various 6000 m high peaks of the main Andes range including Aconcagua. The road stayed up high and led us to the main mountain range in a desert-like environment:

We followed the road that leads to Valparaiso and Santiago (Chile) passing through bizzare stone desserts shining in all colors. The sky was steel blue and 6000 m high volcanoes with glaciers blazing in the sun defined the horizon:

We stopped at a small hut for lunch which was surrounded by a picturesque Dolomite-like scenery, that is, steep faces and towers made of volcanic rock. Well, you definitely cannot mess with such a scenery:

The only non-volcanic stone I found was at the famous Puente del Inca which you may call a 2000 year old spa for the Incas:

Sooner or later that day, we also made it to Aconcagua and hiked an hour towards the base camp. Although, Aconcagua is Americas' highest mountain, it seems, compared to the impressive granite monoliths of Patagonia, just like a huge brick of black volcanic rock with gravel and ice slopes. So from a climber's Aconcagua is not that impressive, even its notorious South face isn't, but we should give it credit for being the highest:

After this long day which we mostly spent in the bus we were really tired. Blame it on last night's party or on the extreme altitude differences. For me and Alister (from New Zealand) the party turned out to be a little quieter that night because we wanted to enjoy another highlight of the Mendocina region the next day: a tour through the local vineyards, where most of the famous Argentinian Cabernet and Malbec is coming from:

So we took a bus out to the vine region of Maipu, rented two cruising bikes, and cycled from vineyard to vineyard.

At the wineries a sign "Bienbebidos" welcomes you,

you can tour through the vineries outdoors,

and through the vine cellars indoors.

Of course, you are provided all kinds of explanations to become a real vine connaisceur

and have some degustacions.

In short, you are having lots of fun and get pretty drunk after only a few vineyards. Luckily, you can take some typical Argentinian steak breaks that help you from getting completely drunk ;)

And so what is like to cycle through paradise?

I guess you can imagine that we had lots of fun, although we literally got more and more of a tunnel vision ;)

In the end the police brought us home (with a motor cycle escort)...

What the f***?

No, it wasn't that bad. Alister just had a flat tire and we tried to hitch hike back with our bikes. The first car to stop was simply a police officer on a motor bike who then called one of his colleagues.

So you see, I got somehow away from the "great wild" and into the usual traveller's party life. It was fun for three days, but now I am sick of it and want to escape into the mountains again.

My next stop is Salta at the Argentinian-Chilean-Bolivian border. Let's see what expects me there.

Nos vemos,

Flo