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Published: December 5th 2011
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Leaving Santiago
Green fields in the desert Three months has passed very quickly. It was time to renew our tourist visas in November. Now, theoretically, I shouldn't have needed to go to Mendoza as I supposedly had a 'subject to contract' visa with my employer. Unfortunately, my employer through a series of miscommunications, misinformation and disorganisation, neglected to start the visa process and inform me of my obligations in this process, so I decided that I would rather have a tourist visa than no visa at all. Much to my employer's chargin, I left for Mendoza for a few days on 19th November. Let's face it how could I let Dee enjoy all that lovely Malbec by himself or leave him alone with those gorgeous tango dancing Argentinan women?!
For once I agree with the hyperbole of the guidebooks. The trip from Santiago (Chile) to Mendoza (Argentina) is a truly remarkable journey. It takes you through the sprawling outskirts of Santiago, follows Rio Blanco (the White River) which flows west towards the Pacific, through gorges and overhanging cliffs, up to Los Libertadores Pass at 3200m with views of Aconagua 6900m, the tallest mountain in the Americas,via a series of 25 ( at least!) precarious and dizzying switchbacks
Following Rio Blanco
This waterfall was being blown back up the mountain face. A track half way up shows the railway and then follows the Rio Rojo (the Red River which flows east towards the Atlantic Ocean) and through kilometers of green vineyards to Mendoza.
We went with Tur-bus. It cost $14000 CLP (about $28 AUD) each for a return trip. It was a pretty good deal. The bus seats were very comfortable and they even provided a brown paper bag of goodies to eat and a drink! The trip takes about 7 -8 hours depending on the traffic and delays at the border.
The countryside around Santiago when left to its own devices is quite arid and barren. It really is a desert landscape, dotted with stunted bushes, dry and dusty soil and largely populated by cacti. A huge transformation occurs though when this land is irrigated. It suddenly can support vast orchards, vegetable gardens and endless vineyards. It is really odd to see acres of green creeping over the dry plains and up rounded hills topped by barren and rocky outcrops with the mighty snow capped Andean Cordilla towering over all.
The road follows the course of Rio Blanco, the White River, and it really is white ( well more like a grey-white), probably from the
chalky white deposits coming from the tonnes of scree that falls from the Andes. The mineral richness of the Andes is so obvious. They are so unlike any mountain range I've ever seen. They consist of colossal monuments of sheer hard rock with 1000s of meters of scree tumbling from them. There is such a variety of colours caused by the mineral deposits in the sedimentary layers - deep purples, lilacs, scarlet reds, bright yellows, blazing whites, dark greens - whose strata have been uplifted and tilted to form all sorts of crazy angles. Boulders of immense size are strewn everywhere and snow and ice patches can last in the coolness of their lee at the start of summer.
We could see following the road a neglected looking railway line. This was the remains of the Transandine Railway which connected Santiago and Mendoza during the early part of the 20th century. Parts of the track were hanging off the sides of cliffs, erosion eating away its foundations, or covered by boulders and/or scree from frequent landsides. You can why it became too difficult to maintain and fell into disuse. There is some talk of reconstruction but we didn't see
too much of that. Running beside it was the remains of the original telegraph line with its wooden posts, broken lines and old white ceramic (?? Dad??) insulators.
At the border at Los Libertadores Pass, we were a bit nervous as Dee worked out that we had actually overstayed our visa by 2 days and we still had some bananas with us! All our worry came to naught as the Argentinans blithely stamped our passports and we dumped the bananas in the closest bin. As we entered Argentina we knew we were on the other side of the Andes as we had the Rio Rojo tumbling beside us heading east! It was a small extraordinary red coloured river in a huge alluvial bed that easily eroded the soft sedimentary soil it travelled through. Apparently we saw Aconagua 6900m as well but we couldn't really tell which snow capped conical mountain it was.
Mendoza was hot and quite humid when we arrived in the afternoon. We found a 3 star hotel - Hotel Internacional near the restaurant area. Immediately we noticed that the Chilean friendliness had disappeared to be replaced by the famous Argentinian aloofness. Although we thought the
bed and breakfast was great, the staff were uncommunicative and not helpful so we transferred to the lesser but friendlier Hotel Milina. The bed was crap, the breakfast was crappier but gee the people were nice!
Mendoza is verdant with large, leafy squares and gushing fountains. Every street is tree lined with irrigation/drainage ditches feeding the large trees and providing a significant pedestrian hazard. It's difficult having a drunken stagger home after a big night. Mendoza has a European feel to it and it is very obviously a town reliant on tourism. Dee and I mainly contented ourselves with trying to find the cheapest yet tastiest meals and trying out the excellent malbec wines. We did our best to try as many as we could and really loved them all. Constantly we were surprised at the size of the meals and keep forgetting to really only order one. Boy do they love their meat. They have a dish called 'asado libre' ( freestyle roast) which basically is meat including beef, chicken, pork, sweet bread, liver etc etc roasted and served with chips, salad, eggs....... Also if you eat outside you can be assured of getting hit on by people
selling stuff. One impeccably dressed older gentleman with a stethoscope around his neck was peddling a blood pressure reading as you gobbled your cholestrol inducing steak and washed it down with a vat of malbec. Another guy was going around selling huge hunting knives to customers eating at the outdoors restaurants and I mean one of those 'you call that a knife' kind of knife. They were huge and deadly looking. If one chose not to purchase this age old device for mayhem, one could buy a tazer. i am not kidding.
We strolled through the streets and the parks, visited the only ruins left of the old Mendoza after the 1861 earthquake which levelled the town and I bought some trinkets at the open air markets. All very pleasant. However our highlight was coming home one evening after a lovely meal and drinking some nice wine, walking through a square with a rotunda in the middle and seeing about 20 people just getting together and doing the tango. There were old men and women and young couples just dancing. It was great. It was about midnight and to just come across these people having an impromptu dance on
a warm summer's evening, in a wisteria and jasmine festooned rotunda, in this European feeling, provincial town gave it a sensuality and suggested a previous era. We loved it. I even was offered a dance, but quickly turned it down. i was more contented to watch and not the destroy the magic with my clumsy attempts at the tango.
We left after 3days and in the end quite gladly. while it was good to have some humid and hot weather and to see some rain which is rare in Santiago, we were over the huge meals and our livers decidedly needed a rest. We enjoyed the journey back just as much.
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Lyn
non-member comment
Great reading........
Deb I just loved your story - you should seriously consider writing professionally!!! Love you both dearly xoxoxoxoxo