Mendoza - High Mountain (Andes) Tour

Yesterday was our final day in Mendoza. When we arrived in the windstorm we were under the impression that Mendoza was a horrible place and wondered why any one would want to visit and why the Lonely Planet book spoke so highly of it. I'm glad we stuck around for a few days and got to see the town in a better light.

Before we left, we went on a guided tour up into the Andes mountain range, which is visible from town. We went 200 km, all the way to the top of the pass, on a mini bus (Sprinter van), stopping at many points of interest along the way. The route we took into the mountains was the same one that we took to get to Medoza from Santiago, and it was even prettier than the previous time. We had clear blue skies. :) It is a very barren landscape of jagged rocks, tall peaks and many sandy slopes where rock slides have taken place. The dirt and rocks come in all colors, orange, red, yellow, brown, black and white. There is very little vegetation, some low growing cactus and a few types of grasses and some drought tolerant bushes, most all of these are under 2 ft tall. The landscape reminded me of many of the national parks in Utah and also of the Polychrome Mountains in Denali Park, AK. It was a leisurely drive with many stops for pictures. The highlight was getting to see Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Western hemisphere at almost 7,000 meters! ( I have no clue what it is in feet, but it must be close to 22,000 ft since Denali is 20,320 ft.) We also saw a cool natural stone bridge spanning a river that was stained yellow, orange and green from the thermal spring in the area, it's called Puente Del Inca. Another cool thing to look at was the remains of the old road and railroad tracks. I tried all day to remember to take pictures with my phone but only remembered once at the view point for Aconcagua.

After the tour we took an overnight bus to Neuquén (pronounced Nay-ooh-ken). We were not sure what we'd do in Neuquén, if anything but it is 12 hours down the road in the direction that we want to go (South) and we didn't really want to be on a bus much longer. However we arrived to Neuquén early this morning and decided there was nothing of interest to stick around for. We got on another bus, and 6 hours later we are in San Martín de los Andes. It is a fancy ski village. But it is summer and there are roses and mountains and green trees everywhere! (:

We rode nice double decker buses with the lounge chair like seats. And to our amazement they served us a hot dinner and breakfast when we woke up! Argentina is very long, over 5,000 km, no wonder it takes so long to get anywhere.

For the most part we hate Argentinian food. They really don't have much in the way of traditional foods. They are mostly foods borrowed from other countries. For breakfast pastries (danish and croissant) and this thick paste like jam. Lunch is pizza, pasta or gross sandwiches with thick dry crumbly bread and one ultra thin slice of ham and one ultra thin slice of cheese. These stupid sandwiches are available all day long, as the Argentinians participate in tea time to hold them over during the hours of 3 and 8 when most restaurants are closed. Dinner is from 8 to midnight in most restaurants and consists of meat and potatoes or more pizza or pasta. So it's processed carb overload with very little nutrition! And it's driving us nuts, we want real food!! It's so strange to me that most restaurants here are closed during the time when almost everyone in the US would be eating breakfast! Oh I almost forgot they have empanadas here too with are baked and filled (with meat usually) turnover type pastries. Those are good. Service at restaurants is insanely slow, which is irritating. We will plan to cook our own food at hostels.

Starting our Trip (Santiago and Mendoza)

I am used to travel in Central America. I imagined that South America would be quite similar but really it's not. One of the main differences is that you can't see much of anything with out paying for a guided tour, and you have to ride forever (8+) to get from one destination to another. It's also much more expensive here and the standard of living is much higher. So far we really haven't seen any slums in Argentina or Chile. These are the two countries we have decided to focus our travels on. We have about 6 weeks before we will go back. We plan to go back mid February so that we can get from New Jersey back to San Diego in my car before my birthday. This is necessary so I can stock up on doctors appointments before I turn 26 and go off my Mom's insurance.

We took a cruise from San Francisco to Santiago where we got off on December 22nd. It was a 17 day cruise stopping in Cabo San Lucas (Mexico), Puerto Quetzal (Guatemala), San Juan Del Sur (Nicaragua), Puntarenas (Costa Rica), Manta (Ecuador), Callao/Lima (Peru) and Coquimbo (Chile). I am glad I have already seen so much of Central America because you really don't get to know the countries by just visiting on city. I didn't care for the cruise much. It was a little too long and it was about 99% old people. All of the organized activities on the ship are planned for old people, art auctions, trivia, bingo, etc. I also found the land tours to be a little on the boring side as well, as they are planned with really old people in mind that can barely walk and were often mid represented in the descriptions. Most of the tours involved riding 2 hours each way in a bus and took up over half the time allotted for the tour, and the tour descriptions don't address travel time so you never know what your are going to get. Maybe I'd like a shorter Caribbean cruise better? Or maybe cruising just isn't for me. I find it hard to just sit around. We watched a ton of tv. We managed not to gain weight, because although the food is good, its easy to get sick of! We also walked many laps around the deck. I am still glad we did the cruise. The cost of the cruise, including all tips and a tour at each port was still about the same price as the one way airfare to Santiago ($1,100).

Getting off the ship was much more stressful than I expected. We called the pursers desk the night before we got off the ship to find out where our bags were being sent based on the color of the luggage tag. They were going to the airport but we were told they would be riding in the same bus with us. They of course were not. And our transfer took us to a hotel in town with promise of a transfer to the airport 6 hours later. Luckily this happened to a lot of people and they go us an earlier transfer to the airport. We still sat around this hotel for about 2 hour though. I see this sort of thing happen all the time when I pick up at the ships in Whittier and Seward, you'd think they could figure out a better way to handle luggage.

Once we got our bags we figured out how to get a bus back to town and then take the subway the rest of the way to our hostel. We saved about $20 doing this instead of taking a taxi. We stayed at a place called Hostel de Sammy. It was in a cool old house in a nice neighborhood with lots of other cool old houses. The hostel itself was a little strange because the people that worked there weren't very helpful, we were the only ones there and a family owned the place and also lived there. We spent two nights in Santiago and I was really impressed with the city. I don't usually like big cities, so that's that's saying a lot coming from me. It was a much more affluent city than I am used to seeing in Latin America. We didn't see any slums, all the building were well constructed and the city had tons of parks, green areas and big trees. We really enjoyed just walking around the city. We did a hike up Cerro San Cristobal where there is a big statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the city. The views of the Andes mountains and the city from up there were very nice.

On Christmas Eve we took a bus from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina. It was a crazy road over the Andes with hair pin switch backs and many tunnels for protecting the road from Avalanche. There was still quite a bit of snow in the high peaks and very little vegetation. It was a pretty 5 hour ride. And thankfully, the long haul buses are about 100 times more comfortable than riding in an airplane, they give you blankets, pillows, food and the chairs are like lounge chairs! I will have to start taking more pictures with my phone so I can put pictures on this blog.

We arrived to Mendoza during one of its wind and heat storms, only we didn't know at the time that this is something that happens only every once in awhile. We just thought Mendoza was a miserable place and wondered why we went there. It was 105+ degrees when we go off the bus. We walked 30 minutes to our hotel because we didn't yet have Argentinian money. We booked a hotel online because we were worried about places filling up because of Christmas. It was a crappy place but was a good place to lay low until Christmas was over. Everything was closed the afternoon of Christmas Eve and remained closed through Christmas Day. It was hard to find food, the town was dead. The heat and wind made it worse, no one came out of their house. It was so windy and dusty I had to take my contacts out to walk around and still got dust in my eyes.

After 2 days in our hotel we moved to a Hostel (Hostel Empedrado) which not only was cheaper but also much nicer. We will start using Hostelworld.com to research places to stay. The Lonely Planet book for South America is surprisingly unhelpful. I have always loved Lonely Planet guides for Central America.

Mendoza was a nice town to walk around once the wind and heat storm was over. The streets are really wide because the town was destroyed in an earthquake in the 1800s. So when they rebuilt the town they decided to make wide roads for rubble to fall into should another large earthquake hit. There are also tons of large trees, mostly a variety of poplar that I'd never seen before, they are very tall and skinny with a thick maze of branches. The tree are used as wind breaks to protect the city during the storms.

Mendoza is a dry, dusty desert. The Andes block all of the humidity coming from the Pacific. It's an important wine producing area, 70% of the wine production in the country is here. And Argentinians love their wine, probably as much as Italians. Mendoza is particularly famous for its Malbec wine. Yesterday (12/26) we did a tour of two local wineries, Lopez and VistAndes, the first doing mass production with traditional methods and the second is considered a boutique winery and produces very little high quality wine using expensive new technologies. We were disappointed that we didn't get to see more of the vineyards, but it is not harvest time, that is from May to July. We were surprised to see that most people on the tours didn't even drink their samples! I was tempted to go to each table and take the remaining samples, but I restrained myself. I bought one bottle of wine at the Lopez winery for $3!! The most expensive wine was about $10, too bad I can't carry more! Most of the wine produced here stays in Argentina, at the first winery only 1% was exported and at the second place none of it was.

We also visited an olive oil factory on the wine tour. They make olive oil, sun dried tomatoes and peppers and raisins and olive oil body products. The olives, peppers, tomatoes and grape for raisins are other commonly grown crops in the region. We got to see how they cold press the olives. And I bought some olive oil spray moisturizer. I was fooled into believing it was a 100% natural product, but sadly it is not! I will have to use it any way, my hair and skin have been so dry and I've been getting bloody nose. :(

I have already had two skin rashes so far on this trip. One in Cabo from something on the beach when we went snorkeling. They were just small red bumps spaced randomly throughout my skin and they went away after a few days of taking Zyrtec allergy pills. I got a second rash after our first night in Santiago. Something, I think, bit me on the back of the leg in my sleep and produced a very large swollen red bump (about the size of a quarter). I then proceeded to get about 30 more similar itchy red bumps mostly on my arms which didn't go away until I got cortisone cream. I sure wish I knew what I was allergic to so I could prevent these things from happening in the future. My $300 allergy test that I took last year in the US informed me that I have no allergies, but I get skin rashes whenever I travel outside of the country and also sometimes while at home too. I realize this paragraph may be a little too much info but I like to keep a record so I can plan for future trips.

Today we are on a day tour into the Andes and tonight we take an overnight bus to Neuquén.

I will try to keep this blog updated more regularly. I know this is a lot to read at once. It is nice to have a record of our trip and for people at home to know what we are up to.