The Andes (11.07 - 13.07)

In the early morning we packed all our stuff and left Hostel Uma for the bus terminal. Thank God that we chose to stay close, because it’s pretty difficult to run around with all the stuff we’re carrying – so much for traveling light, but after all we had to move out completely. The previous evening we booked tickets for Uspallata as well as to Santiago de Chile. If anyone wants to do the same remember that argentine bus companies will be less than helpful, but the Chileans don’t have any problem with it – they will pick you up in front of Uspallata’s police station (you’ll have to pay the full price from Mendoza though).

  The ride to Uspallata is amazing. After some 30 minutes the road starts to ascend and turns into the valley of Rio Mendoza leading upwards into the Andes. The views are breathtaking and it’s only the beginning, further up you will see even more amazing things.  To sleep on this journey is simply a crime, so even though we were tired (the previous night I was writing the tour diary until 2.30 am) we made an effort to stay awake. 

The bus dropped us just in front of Hostel Uspallata, which is situated in beautiful landscape about 7 km away from the town. It was about 10:30 am, the sun was shining and even though we were high up in the mountains it wasn’t cold at all. The hostel was empty, the last guests got into their car and left as we approached. The receptionist was a 50-year-old adorable woman named Rosa. She is really communicative and kind. As soon as we left all our stuff in one of the dorm rooms, we went into the lobby to have a chat with her, sipping on mate. In the end we spent the next 2 hours, while waiting for a bus that would take us to the city. There is no bus stop so you have to wait for the bus on the road. Unfortunately this time it came earlier so we were left dumbstruck in front of the hostel as we were still exchanging tips and tricks with Rosa. Well, what can you do…? We stood out on the road and started hitchhiking.

  

After some 30 minutes we scored a small bus heading to Santiago de Chile, and they took us to the center of Uspallata, where we quickly arranged our laundry and bought tickets to Puente del Inca, further up the mountains. As you can imagine, the trip blew our minds away – I guess the best is just to take a look at the pictures, eve though they will hardy convey the true magnitude of the beauty, splendor and might that the Andes represent.

Soon, that is after another 2 hours, we arrived to Puente del Inca, which lies 8 km further up from Penitentes, where you can ski (if you’re rich enough). Niki’s critical eye concluded that the slope is shit and the snow is old. It’s hard to say now whether she said that only to comfort herself, (since we didn’t have enough cash to cover the skiing trip) or the slope was actually shit.

  Puente del Inca is an extremely small village, consisting of nothing more than a couple of houses, a handcraft bazaar (you can find one next to virtually every tourist attraction in South America), an argentine army base (it must be something like a punishment to be sent there…), and, of course, The Bridge of Inca. First of all try not to imagine a bridge, you know – stones, arcs and so forth. Well, it does have stones, or rocks to be honest, and it does actually have an arc, but what I’m coming at is that it’s not a man-made bridge. It’s a bridge that has sort of hmm… constructed itself naturally. You have Rio Mendoza bubbling several meters down and so it happens that there are some mineral wells there too. And so it happened one day, or – according to one explanation – must have happened, that the low temperatures aided by the mineral wells have resulted in this somewhat uncommon horizontal construction. However according to an Inca legend, it must have been a divine act. The legend says that one day the chief of one Inca tribe got seriously ill. The shaman said that there is one herb that can cure his illness but to find it they would have to go on a long journey. The people really loved their chief so they decided to do their best to help him and set off to find the plant. They walked for many days until they reached an impassable river. They decided to set a camp there, and tried to think of ways to cross the river, they even made long excursions to look for another path, but all that resulted in nothing. One night they went to rest in very dread moods. The Inca gods, seeing that the people really loved their chief, and were desperate to save him, decided to help them, and when the next morning the Incas woke up they saw a bridge, built entirely from rock, stretching over the hatred river. This is how they got to the healing herb and saved the life of their chief.

  In the 1910’ the British came there because they found out of the healing wells and decided to construct a luxurious hotel. The ruins can still be visible today. 20 years later an avalanche came down from the mountains and destroyed it almost completely, save for the small church that stood nearby. That’s all you can see now – an interesting natural phenomenon and a leftover of human interference. All in all Puente del Inca is definitely worth to see. Even more so when you see the amazing beauty of the mountains there. Aconcangua – the highest peak of South America is just 3 km away, but you have to be lucky enough to get there while good weather lasts. If there are any clouds you won’t be able to see the top.

  On our way back we stopped in Uspallata again, first of all because we had to collect our laundry, and also we needed to use internet. Niki managed to create mayhem in the cybercafe that we targeted – she wanted to skype with her father, and virtually all the headsets were broken, so the clerk decided to bring his own laptop and give it to Niki. Isn’t she a sweetheart?

  The next day, Rosa arranged for her cousin to come and take us horseback riding. It was one of the highlights of our stay there. It cost us some 10 USD each, and initially we were a bit put off by the fact that it was to last only an hour, but after we were done, we thanked heavens that we hadn’t decided to ride for more time. As you can imagine we are not quite accustomed to having our bottoms beaten to pulp so all in all one hour was just enough. Curiously, I found it quite easy to steer my animal and enjoyed the ride immensely - perhaps I could only complain that it was rather reluctant to go faster. It was a great experience and we’re going to repeat it, hopefully some time soon.

  In the evening the sky turned grey. After a minute of thoughtful observations of wind, Rosa deducted that it’s going to snow. Indeed, an hour later the mountaintops became blurred and the snow was clearly visible. At about the same time our hostel lost electricity and regained it only for sort periods of time. It was just enough to realize that the border crossing to Chile was closed though. Whether it would be possible to cross the following day was still an open question. In the meantime, the once peaceful hostel became increasingly crowded. Every ten minutes another car would park outside and someone would get out to ask if there were any free rooms left. In an hour the hostel was completely full, and even us had to move to Rosa’s room to make space for guests. We did our best to help her control the situation – she was alone and there was a lot of work to do. After the situation was contained we moved to the kitchen, where a bunch of hippies lit up the fireplace and spent the evening drinking wine.

  The next day we woke up early to reach the police station on time. Our bus to Santiago de Chile left Mendoza around 8 in the morning, so depending on the traffic it would arrive to Uspallata between 10:30 and 11:00. Naturally we didn’t want to be late. In the end it arrived at noon – just in time to save me from Niki’s hysteria… Unfortunately just when we made ourselves comfortable the bus stopped on something resembling a huge car park, lots of other buses and cars were there. The drivers announced that the border crossing was still closed and we had to wait for news. According to them if they wouldn’t have opened it within an hour it wouldn’t have made any sense to go further – after 15:00 the road gets icy and it’s very difficult to cross. Eventually it was our lucky day (at least we thought so) and we moved on. Approaching the border crossing, high up in the mountains, someone started screaming about smoke on the bus. Indeed, something was producing smoke. We stopped and everyone rushed outside, which was a bit difficult, since everyone – ignoring the safety precautions – carried all their belongings along he way. We followed this trend. The most hilarious was to see and older couple stepping down from the bus – the woman was coughing violently, while her husband was shaking his head disbelievingly and trying to light up a cigarette. Apparently he didn’t mind the smoke. After all the drivers informed us that there wasn’t an fire – an extinguisher fell from it’s place and opened releasing that funny powder, that indeed resembles smoke. We were able to resume the journey. 

Getting out of Argentina was easy, although it involves crossing a long tunnel without any ventilation – cars, buses and trucks lined up in a milky fog of pollution. Getting into Chile was a nightmare. We waited for 4 hours on the border before everyone was rushed to form a cue to the various windows where we had to obtain stamps. In the meantime police dogs where sniffing around for drugs, all the bags were x-rayed and some where opened. We had to rewrite our customs declarations, because we had some yerba and spices with us. We forgot to include them in our statements, so if they were found we would have to pay fines.

We got to Santiago at 22:00, as opposed to 16:00 according to the schedule.