Blogs from Aconcagua, Mendoza, Argentina, South America

On Monday, we met for breakfast at 7 AM, to be ready for our pick up at 8 AM by Kahuak Tours and our high mountain guide for the day. This guide turned out to be Martin, who had a constant smile on his face, laughed easily, and was joyful of an opportunity to go into his beloved mountains. Unlike the wine tours, the Aconcagua Experience was not a private tour, but we were lucky that there were only two other people joining us that day, a young Brazilian couple from Sao Paolo. Small world, we all soon found out that we all, us, Martin, and the young couple, had been at Andeluna the day before. During our drive, Martin spent the time giving us a detailed background of this area of the Cordillera, their formation, ... read more

Alta Montana tour The guide showed us various spots in the Andes and told us about various disasters and mysteries that had occurred in the mountains throughout history. I was intrigued and loved hearing the details and it left me with desire to see a lot of films and read a lot of books that I previously hadn’t known existed. Amongst the stories was one about a Uruguayan plane which crashed in the mountains and the survivors walked to the Chilean border to get help. We also heard about a plane crash involving a UK plane which in 1947 was carrying war veterans, pound sterling, documents regarding the war and gold. It came down due to bad weather. There were no survivors and years later all the bodies were found in perfect condition due to the ... read more

Cinquième étape : L'Argentine ! Olà! Qué tal biene?! Arrivée en Argentine hier soir avec un changement radical d'ambiance. Il fait chaud, il fait beau et les gens sont tous conviviaux. J'ai choisi de faire escale à Mendoza car c'est une ville partagée par deux types de populations. L'une est d'une pauvreté reconnue et l'autre partie au contraire, étale sa richesse sans scrupule. J'ai été choquée de ce triste constat.. J'ai un ami qui m'avait déjà parlé de cet écart de richesse affligeant qui s'exposait de façon assez perturbante sous nos yeux et devant ce spectacle, je me sentais coupable de la chance que j'ai de vivre dans une ville dont le patrimoine est reconnu par UNESCO. (et où il fait vraiment, bon vivre!) La collaboration entre ces deux ethnies est compliquée, ce qui implique notamment ... read more

4:25 p.m. We have been sitting on the bus at Chilean immigration control since 3:45. We were warned of a multi-hour wait because of how tightly they check, particularly for absolutely anything resembling a fruit, vegetable or meat product unless it is pickled in a jar or can. Plus, the luggage is x-rayed, including hand luggage. Our group responsibly brought activities for waiting on the bus, so all is calm. I don’t mind the wait, because we have spent the last seven hours riding through the fabled Andes in perfect, sunny weather! We left Mendoza City at 9:30 this morning, leaving behind vineyards for dry scrub. As we began climbing into the Andes Plata Range, I was surprised at how friable was the rock – almost un-pressed sedimentary rock. The further we went, the more... read more

Finally got around to posting and annotating photos from December's trip to Argentina. A synopsis of the Aconcagua climb is provided in case anyone is wondering about the details. Note: $1 = 1 ARG peso and at the time of the trip $US1 ≈ 3.9-4.0 pesos. Day -2, 12/9/2010 - Spent the day in Atlanta after a red-eye from Seattle. Slept in the terminal for about 3 hours til 9 am before grabbing some breakfast and heading downtown for the CNN tour which was kind of lame. The long, uneventful flight to Bs As left around 8 pm. Sadly no upgrade since it was a frequent flier ticket but that did not preclude me from asking. At least I had an exit row for the 10 hour flight. Day -1 - Arrived on time in Bs ... read more