So here I finally am, back after a few silent weeks. The truth is that there isnt much (interesting for you) stuff to speak about lately. The routine of a 8 hours per day job plus the lack of trips kind of killed this blog. I will try to make it come back to life with some argentinian stories but, for the time been, all I can do is to look back to the past. Here you have the cronicle of a trip to los Andes I did with my australian ex-flatmate just after I was hired that first time which ended up been nothing. As you will read, at that moment I was all hapiness and optimism and I was entusiastically facing what I believed to be my last serious trip after my descending into the boring working life.

Mendoza wines

The two weeks after I got my job were really good. Basically because of the visit of two good friends from my time in that great flat in Madrid we called Orensev2. When you are travelling, very far away from home and your old fellows, it really makes you happy to have them around, even if it is only for a while. Nothing wrong with all these people I have been meeting but a familiar face, with whom you have some story in common, is really valuable in these moments. So lets start with Koala Matt who came directly from Madrid thanks to a last minute flight offer from Aerolineas Argentinas. We took advantage of my last days as an unemployed person and organized a quick trip to the Andes. The idea was to do San Luis - Mendoza - Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile. A very ambicious plan for only six days but in the end I think we managed pretty well. We had to leave San Luis out due to bad buses timetable but achieved the rest. Here it goes the story…

Mendoza is known in Argentina for producing the best wines and also for been the entry door to the Andes, the huge mountain system which makes a natural border with Chile. Let’s start telling about the bus that got us there because it was not a common one. Argentinians have very long distances to travel so they really take care to make the journy as comfortable as possible. If you are willing to spend some extra money you can travel in what they call the executive class. This basically means your seat is huge and can be folded into a totally horizontal bed. The one we got its the best one I have seen so far. Very comfortable seats, flat tv playing films and dinner and breakfast served during the way. All this added up to make the trip pass very fast. It’s more than 12 hours but you spend most of this time sleeping and the rest watching films.

Anyway, so we arrived in Mendoza and went straight to a hostel we had booked with an american girl from couchsurfing who was doing a similar trip. The place was close to the bus station, had a small swimming pool and the most important thing: a “all you can drink” wine policy. Micheline happened to be a very friendly girl and we all together went for a wine tasting tour. The best way to do this in Mendoza is by renting bikes in the Maipu area, where all the big factorys are located. They give you a map wich six wine places to visit and you go all over them riding your bike. I guess this combination of wine and bike probably get some drunken people to taste the road as well but, from one time, we took it easy and there wasnt any accidents to regret. We visit a few of these places and heard a lot of talking about how the wine is made, had the chance to test some of them, eat some empanadas and in between quite a lot of bike riding. A very interesting trip with a very remarkable hightlight: the moment I managed to introduced all my body in a very big industrial wine storage. I was trying to add my personal contribution to the next batch of the factory. I dont think they would have liked my idea too much but fortunately nobody saw me. We ended the day drinking a free shitload of cheap wine with the guy who rented the bikes. Hugo was his name, great guy! if you ever want to rent a bike he is the man. Theirs are the cheapest ones and they have this sweet bonus in the end.

But the real drinking apocalypsis would happen in the hostel. We had a bottle of Brugal of use which was gone in seconds. Talking about Brugal, what a nice moment when I had the first glass after three months. I know what I am going to say know it is going to sound really alcoholic but this is the way it was. There are many things I miss and make me feel like going back to Spain but never this need was so phisically strong as in this moment I drunk this delicious rum. It was like if all my body was crying for going back to a place where you can get Brugal everywhere. Fuck the job, fuck this country no matter how much I like it. There is no Brugal in Argentina, therefore Argentina is no good, I gotta leave. Fortunately I overcame this moment.

So, I was saying, the night happened to be quite hardcore. The hostel was packed with australians and british, all of them looking forward partying extremely. The owner had the bad idea of leaving unprotected a bunch of five litters wine bottles. I cant believe he thought that hidding them after the bar was going to be enough. The last thing I cleary remember is to have got them and bring them where the others were.With such an almost unlimited alcohol supply we went over all the typical drinking games such as “I never”, “blowing cards” and this kind of stuff… I guess only the Flint game was missing although I cant really guarantee this wasnt done at some point. When I woke up next day (surprisingly not too late), I found out that we had jumped to the swimming pool in underwear and climbed to the roof of the place. If I am aware of all this is thanks to the pictures, my memory had no registry of all that mess. Koala could find his passport and in general everybody looked very wasted. The owner wasnt friendly to us anymore so we were really happy we were not going to stay there loner… Well, what do you want me to say, most of you seemed to be surprised about how lightweight I was becoming when it comes to partying in this trip. We definitely hit the night this time.

Mr Aconcagua

This trip had party but many other things. The fact is that it was very complete one. It was one of this times that plannification works out perfectly, all decisions taken are the right ones and luck is on your side. In spite of waking up later than planned in Mendoza and having been said in the station that we need to wait for two hours for our bus, everything was fine. We used this time to walk over Mendoza, a place that so far we didnt know as good as we knew the hostel swimming pool. Not that we had plenty of time but we could say the central square, surrounded by another four smaller squares. Very geometric, like most of this relatively new cities in this continent. Lot of trees everywhere and a nice atmosphere. The city looked like a nice place to live but for us it summarized in one word: wine.

Uspallata was the next place we had decided to go. It is small town in which, en theory, we were gonna camp. As soon as we got down the bus there we saw this add offereing a bunch of outdoors activities starting in… 10 minutes. Thats what is called good timming! We decided to do the rappel - tirolina - climbing combination. The Andes landscape was perfect and the rock wall perfect for doing this stuff. Man, I really liked it. I found it was a great way to fight with this vertigo problem I have. After the first scary moment right before jumping in the tirolina I enjoyed it all over. The climbing thing is a very intensive phisycal exercise I am planning to experience further. You feel you are working out most of you muscles and it really gives you a great satisfaction when you reach the top of that wall. The rappel thing is also very enjoyable, jumping down a 50 meters wall hanging from a rope. It sort of reminded my boy-scout experience ages ago. To do: investigate climbing business in Buenos Aires, see if I can get more expertise. About the night, this time nothing remarkable happened. We ended up in this hostel in the middle of nowhere, far way from any action. But I will tell you something, it was exactly what we needed. A quiet dinner, a movie and to the bed. Before that I tried to ride a horse we found around the place but the bastard run away from me.

The next day we woke up early to start a day full of sightseen. As usual we were short of time and we had to visit Andes main spots in only one day. These were: the “Cristo Redentor”, the Aconcagua and the Inca bridge. The first one is a monument place right in the border between Argentina and Chila as peace symbol, after these two countries had some issues. More than the monument itselft the impressive thing is the landscape. The andes is a the place where the long bus rides stop been boring cause you spent all that time looking amazed through the window. The mountain chain looks endless. With an average high around 4000 km, it goes all over South America, from South to North, creating a naturla border between Argentina and Chile. We were also very lucky with the weather and had this great sunny day that allowed us to fully experience the place. You can reach the Cristo Redentor by walking a 8km path since the nearest “civilizied” place or you can get a van to get all the way there. We were in a rush so we had to do the second. They basically get you up there, give you a while to walk around and get you back.

Getting a good view of the Aconcagua required a bit more effort. The highest peak of the whole continent, with 6925 meters, is a huge mountain crossed close to its top by a few glaciars. You get there by paying an entrance fee to the Aconcagua natrual park. There is a cheap one just for doing trekking and an expensive one for climbers. The one we took allowed us to walk all the way to this Indian Jones style bridge over the river. There isnt much else to say about this, this is one of these cases that images are more valuable than words. But I will tell you something, looking far away to the Aconcagua I got the same need than when I climbed the Papagaoy peak in Ilha Grande; I had to get up there. Only problem is that in this case this would require around 15 days climbing including periods to adapt your body to the heigh and the cost would be around 1500 dollars. Still, it is an idea I am gonna store in my projects folder. So, these are the Aconcagua pics, a mountain with personality, at least from y point of view.

So, after we were done with the Aconcagua (at least with the part we could see in such a short time), only the Inca bridge was left. This is a natural rock bridge over Las Cuevas river, supposedly to be one of the world greatest natural things. Just to be sure about that, I ignored all the “no trasspasing” warnings and got myself right below the bridge through a very narrow cave. In fact I am not really too much into doing this kind of “ilegal” things, I dont really know what was going on with me in this trip. It was not allowed even to cross the bridge since a recent study had found out that it might fall down soon. Anyway, at that point I thought it was a great idea so I did it. If the bridge would decide to break down exactly when I was down there so be it. The vandalism was worth it, when you are down there you really appreciate how well built the bridge is and the most amazing thing is that nobody did it, it was the nature itself. Quite spectacular, more than it looks in the pictures.

So once we were done with the basic Andes activities, we still had a tricky move to make. In order not to get back all the way backwards to Mendoza for the bus to Chile, we had arranged with the agency so we could jump in right in Puente del Inca. The bus was supposed to show up at 1am but, as you can imagine, there wasnt anything remotely similar to a bus stop there. We had to believe that Andesmar was a every efficient company and they had made sure that the bus driver knew there was a couple of gringos to pick up half the way. This been said like this does not sound too risky but when you are so late in the middle of nowhere in a very dark road where different buses pass al the time very fast so you dont even have time to check whether this was the one you were waiting for… well, you get a bad feeling about it. We put a 200 meters of road distance between us so the first one could spot the bus destination and shout to the second one to stop it. Buses and buses went through that road and ours was not coming, or maybe it did but we did not recognize it. Finally one of them stopped and yeah, Andesmar had made his part of the deal, two names were marked in yellow on the passenger list and there was a note saying “Puente del Inca”. We were leaving to Chile.

Chile in 24 hours

We arrived to Valparaiso after a very long trip in which we had to wait for hours to cross the border and see how one of those huge buses got stucked and had to be pushed by the passengers. 7 in the morning, we hardly slept and we have only a day in this country. In less than 24 hours we need to be in Santiago airport for our flight back to BA. Once again, we take the right decision: we get a hostel there, just to sleep a siesta and take a shower. I will tell you why. When you are becoming more experienced in this sort of rush trips you know how different the world is after a quick nap in a proper bed and a shower. Before that you feel like a homeless who just arrived to the town too early, carrying your backpack and smelling bad. After you are fresh, clean and ready for doing all the required sightseen. And Valparaiso is definitely a place worth to be visited. A very peculiar place which inspires contradictory feelings. Sometimes you think is fucking crappy, sometimes you think is nice and colourful. It is a mess of favela neibourghoods on top and in between hills. Houses looking about to fall down and painted in different colors. Elevators to get people up and down. On the bottom city there is the modern part and a huge dock. Up the hills, favelas and more favelas. Two worlds communicated by the elevators I mentioned before. Somehow it reminded me Rio, lacking its spectacularity but also its unsecurity. As the locals liked to say, in Valparaiso (Valpo for friends) you have faveles but with “good atmosphere”. The truth is that I got myself to the very deep of those neibourghoods and never felt the danger I felt in Brazil. Not too much can be said about a place you had just one day to visit but, in any case, I am glad I had the chance to have a look at it. An interesting town to be added to the list, besides, the local beer was great

Our trip had to finished in Santiago, an hour and a half away from Valpo. To be honest, we didnt see the city at all, in theory Valparaiso was the place for the sightseen and Santiago would be just for partying and taking the plane back home. We did the first thing so well that we almost fucked up with the second. The second hardcore party night of the trip and, as many other times, couchsurfing is to be thanked for that. A short visit to an Internet cafe allowed us to find out about the CS plan for that night in Santiago. Apparently it was someone’s birthday in a place where some local band was playing. We jumped into that plan and had a fucking great time cause the band was amazing and the atmosphere very friendly. There was just a bit tense moment when some guys looking like extras for the Last of the Mohicans movie started to speak to me about his indian ancestors, the mapichu tribe. It was funny untill they started to insist and insist on how the Spanish had exterminated all the mapuches. I put some distance between them and me when I realized my hair was in danger of ending up in the mapuche leader tent. In any case, as I was saying, it was a great night. One of those ones you make it to the aiport in the last minute and not knowing exactly how you did it. Still absolutely drunk but with the nice feeling of having partied propertly and fullfilled your obligations as a night punisher. So here I am, waiting to do the check in when I see Koala walking very determined God knows where. I stopped him and then he tells me that he is flying to Australia jajajajajajaja. I managed to convince him not to do so although two days before he flew there anyway…

So, in summary, this was a great trip that had almost everything. Natural toursim and urban one. Night - alcoholic activities and healthy ones. Good weather and food. And, above everything, a perfect planification without fuck-ups and doing the most out of the limited time we had. Back in Buenos Aires my job was waiting for me and also the visit of another friend, Knocte. As you know the first thing happened to be a big dissapoint. Not the second one and the chilean experience was followed by a short but intense scapade to Uruguay about which there isnt much to say but that we had a great time.

Paco, master of disaster

• There was a kind of complicated moment on our way back from Santiago, changing planes in Montevideo. We are still quite drunk. I cant find my passport. Ups, trouble… A minute after the airport speakar says something: “Mr del Castillo, plese go to check in 1″ . The mistery gets solved. Apparently my passport had decided to go there for a walk…So, once again, close to the real disaster but somehow avoiding it

Pictures

• Mendoza
• Uspallata
• Puente del Inca
• Valparaiso & Santiago

Tags: Andes, Mendoza, Valparaiso