Mendoza

arriving at 8am in buenos aires after a night on bus and boat, still with all the impressions of uruguay in my head, it was this moment when crossing leandro alem avenue i knew i had to get away again. hundreds of ugly, stinky trucks passing by in front of me made the decision easy.

so pretty fast marion had her bus ticket to.. away. this time mendoza, the capital of wine production in argentina. anyway, thats not the reason why im here, i got higher objectives. i wanted to see the highest mountain of america, the aconcagua.

mendoza city

so after one night in buenos aires i packed my stuff again and left to the super busy bus terminal. the bus to mendoza takes like 15 hours, so another night sleepless in argentina. even more thrilling getting back to consciousness the next day, looking out the window and seeing.. what?? no mountain. i should explain, my expectation of mendoza was that it would be in the mountains. and if not that then at least .. dont know, hills that would indicate that theres one of the highest mountainranges in the world close. but nothing, the country around mendoza is as flat as patagonia. and as dry.

they say mendoza is an oasis, the water they need comes from the rivers around town and all green in town just grows thanks for human help. including the enormous wine fields, everyting is watered artificially. kinda scary.. it looks quite green here. in the flatlands.

on the horizon to the west of mendoza you can make out the mountains i was missing, aparently hiiiigh mountains. mendoza is something around 700m sealevel. the mountains in the back go up to 6000m. yeeheah, compared to that our alps might look like hills. not even half as high :P

me in the high mountains

so turning into tourist again i booked a tour to see these mountains. named "high mountain tour" it promised all i wanted. starting at 7am, cause there is like almost 200 kilometers to drive to get to aconcagua. but lets start at the beginning. we did a first stop at a laguna, aparently a lake of glaciar water, leftover from long time ago when here everything was glaciar. looong time ago, right now its really hot here.

and on we go to puente de picheuta. a bridge. nothing more, nothing less, a little bridge over an even smaller river. supposed to have been built by incas, so a precious artefact. dont touch it.

the really important impressions of this part of the trip were actually the mountains. finally they began to rise and rise, the road stopped being straight like a hairline. all together nothing comparable with the alps, might the andes have a really different history i dont know, but they look completely different. at least here. deserted canions, lots of soil but not a single serious tree in sight. and colours! the ground here contains several minerals, that give the mountains there characteristic layers of colours. yellow for sulfur (schwefel), green for copper (!!) and red for iron. impressive. sad but the colours are not that shiny in the pictures, sorrrry.

next stop in the trip was the famous puente del inca, the inca bridge. this is.. well i dont know honestly. a bridge, naturally "grown", of sand, soil, stones and termal water. shiny yellow, the bridge doesnt really fit into the landscape. it got its name cause it was used as a major route for crossing the andes by the incas. in the 1930s there was a spa hotel built into the hill aside the river, using the termal spring water here. sounded weird to me that in the 30s there were people, obviously with money, travelling out into the andes to get some wellness. but well, today you can see the ruines of what was a hotel before.

aconcagua

final and most desired stop on the tour was the aconcagua. its a national park where you walk like half an hour in the deserted landscape until you arrive at a viewpoint to get some pictures of the mountain. to mention, the mountain itself doesnt look that special on the pictures. thats first because the viewpoint is already on 2950something meters. second, the place is still like 40km(!) away from the mountain. by car you cant get closer, youd have to walk. and sorry im not gonna walk 40km. although i was tempted to join the hiking tour..

the tip of aconcagua itself is 6962m above sealevel. i would have loved to see it just from a bit closer. anyway, being up at 3000m was an experience for itself. the air is getting thinner and you get tired so much faster. haha and you notice who smoked too much in his life and who didnt. impressive was the wind up there. so hardcore, you could barely walk straight. and with the wind came the dust. i still got the dirt in my hair. and clothes. and ears. and probably nose.

alltogether a beautiful experience. people who know me i dont need to tell that i even liked the dust. on the way down a group of mulis passed our way, running downhill. following them was a group of shepherds on horses.

THE picture of the andenes, i swear :)