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Published: April 13th 2005
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to continue from before...we spent 3 or beautiful days in bariloche. it is a magically gifted city surrounded by a huge lake to one side and then rising up to a section of the andes that is about picture perfect. we had many plans for trekking, biking, horseback riding, and kayaking. unfortunately the weather was not being very supportive. we set out the first day with big plans but spent the day wondering the town with some english chaps we had met on our epic boat journey. there was no heartbreak for alana, bariloche is the chocolate capital of the argentina and the streets were lined with shop after shop. the day was filled with alana suddenly disappearing and returning with a little bag treats.
the following day after submitting to the rain we decided to rent a car and drive the circuit that we were planning on biking. this would be my first time behind the wheel in south america. for anyone who has ever been down here you know driving is not to be taken lightly. you basically need to be a rally sport driver with nerves of steel and reflexes to match. I somehow felt I was
bariloche with the english
some friends that we spent days exploring the rain time in bariloche. up to the task. so our little red VW GOL showed up the hostle at 11 am. the car rental company had us fill out some minor paper work (alana looked it over to make sure we weren´t signing our lives away) then I was walked out to the car and my new rental employee friend proceeded to give me a quick tutorial on the car and driving in argentina - all in spanish. the conversation went something like this -
rental car guy: "muy importante, (insert many spanish words)"
ben: "um, no entiendo??" (means I don´t understand)
rental car guy: "no problama, (insert more spanish words that sound important)¨"
ben: "um........." smiling and nodding.
after about ten minutes of this exchange I´d learned how to start the car and open the trunk. I figured that was probably about all I needed to know. (this is normally the part of the story that goes wrong, to kill the suspense we had no problems)
after pulling the rest of the crew together (us and english chaps, lynne and david) we headed out for a drive. driving in bariloche was a bit "white knuckling", they have not really
embraced stop signs or stop lights so each corner is kind of a free for all. once we finally got out into the countryside it was smooth from there. we spent the day driving through beautiful mountain areas sounded by clear lake after clear lake. each lake having a densely wooded island somewhere in the middle that just yelled to be explored. after a while we got out to eat lunch and walk around. this was mostly met with cold rain and shivering but we braved on to see some great views and some brief and happy moments of sun. at around 3pm the real weather came in and the beautiful views were suddenly covered in dense clouds. we made full use of the car privilege by driving to the mall and to a movie.
bariloche continued to be a fun time with our new friends. we spent the nights out to a $3 steak dinner followed by a $3 bottle of wine or 2 or 3 and an endless match of "500" a new card game that we learned from some aussies on the boat. we actually wore out the cards during the games. we did get about
4 hrs of sunshine one day and made it out to a place where you would take a chairlift to the top of the mountain then to get down we took a giant slide where I left behind some of my skin and then one of those toboggan rides. it was great fun and filled with some supreme views. bariloche came to an end and we headed north to mendoza while our new found card addicts went east to buenos aires.
mendoza -
great little town in northwest argentina. it has a great atmosphere and is very modern. this thanks to an earthquake and fire that leveled the town in 1861 (founded in 1561). mendoza, for those unfamiliar, is where most of argentinas wine comes from. I think it is apparent when you can go into the store and buy a great bottle of wine for under a 1$ US!! we of course did a wine tour and learned about what makes a reserve a reserve and how whites are made vs reds etc. we found the wine tour to be a little boring, albeit good information, and the tasting was sort of like going into baskin robins
and only getting a sample. after the tour we decided to forget the rest and just buy our own. after spending a day in mendoza we headed our west to aconcagua the highest mountain in the americas.
to get to aconcagua we took a bus to a little town called puenta inca. this place was made famous by a natural bridge that was created by a river that carved it out years ago and a ton of natural hot springs that have made it a strange color and shape. the bus ride to puente inca is on one of the most beautiful stretches of road in argentina. this route into the heart of the andes is surrounded by colorful rocky mountain after colorful rocky mountain. it is sort of like zion national park and glacier national park wrapped into one. just amazing. back to puente inca...this town has a population of about 8 people. its sole purpose is to be a stopping point to see the bridge, which loads of people do, and for access to aconcagua. we got in about 1:30 planned to eat lunch, shed some of our backpack weight at the hostle and then walk 2
kms along the highway to the park. one problem....I had been bitten by that stomach thing that happens on occasion when you travel to foreign lands.
so we ate...I went to the bathroom, we checked out the bridge, I went to the bathroom, we bought some water, I went to the bath room. at about 3:30 pm I conceded that maybe trying to reach a campsite at 17,000 feet today was not the best idea so we checked into the Refugio (low cost hostle with little service) cooked some dinner and talked to the crazy old man who ran the Refugio...aconcagua would be ours tomorrow. we got up early to tackle the mountain and feeling great. me having no more need to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. we packed up our stuff said our goodbyes to our new friend and then walked out the door to start our adventure. as luck would have it there was a bus that was just dropping a load of new tourists to see the bridge so we begged our way on board to skip the highway walk and got a lift to the park entrance. finally we had made it. jumping
our wine tour
¨quick grab some bottles!¨ of the bus we got our first view of the mountain, and all I can say is awesome (by the way everyone makes fun of americans for that word). it is just massive. it was very humbling to stand there at the foothills of the tallest mountain in the americas, the tallest mountain our side the Himalayas. you could see the swirling clouds bouncing off of its massive face. we hiked in ready to climb up to our first ever base camp (with no plans to climb to summitt, if you want to climb that high you need tons of gear and two weeks - we had neither) by the time we reached the park entrance we were mesmerized and humbled. we were met by "ruggedly handsome" (Alana´s description) park guard and ready to go. unfortunately we were also met with two problems - the park is really expensive and I was feeling my bathroom troubles again. so after a lot of back and forth, some frustration from "ruggedly handsome" ranger we decided that maybe trying to go to a base camp at about 17,000 ft was not the best idea. we spent the rest of a beautiful day staring
a giant wine barrel
anyone got the tap at the big mountain and then wandered back to puente inca to catch a bus back to mendoza. before our bus arrived alana was treated to a spanish tutorial from the crazy old man that runs the refugio. this consisted of dirty word in spanish followed by bellowing laughter from the old man followed by next dirty word. funny how fart jokes work no matter the language.
we need to run for our bus to salta so more updates to come.
hope all is well
ben and alana
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