Crossing the Andes. Neither Hannibal nor any elephants in sight...
Another day, another border crossing. I've had that feeling a few times on my travels, but just occasionally, the cross-border schlep is actually really worth it. When you're going through one of the highest passes in the Andes would be one of those times. The first couple of hours or so were pretty uneventful, the usual greenery of the Chilean countryside whizzing by with the mountains just about visible in the distance in the haze. Then we started up the valley towards the pass. At this point, my memory took me back to the approach to Milford Sound in New Zealand, where it all starts with the valley narrowing in a bit, and then gets closer and closer. In this case, the mountains get up above the treeline before things start getting close around the road, and there's a long series of switchbacks back and forth across the mountain, including several tunnels and avalanche shelters (if the producers of the next Bond film are looking for a good road to chase down, I reckon this'd be pretty solid at keeping people's attention!) before the final tunnel (about 2 miles or so long) through the mountains - it used to go over the very top of the pass, by a statue of Christ the Redeemer (he gets in everywhere!), but they cut the journey time down a fiar old bit when they built the tunnel. Pete and I spent a good part of the valley approach and the climb up the switchbacks frantically trying to snap the scenery through the bus windows, with mixed results (stupidly, we'd got seats on the sunny side of the bus, so a lot of my pictures have reflections of the bus's horrible orange curtains somewhere in them...).
The border post itself is on the Argentine side of the pass, where officials from both countries stamp your respectively in and out, and the scans for fruit, vegetables, dairy etc are made. This would be one of the times that the Force was with me travelling-wise, as we got to the border with a couple of small minibuses in front of us, whereas by the time we had all been processed and our bus was ready to leave, there were 5 double-decker coaches queued up for the crossing - I would probably have done my nut if I'd been on one of them! After the formalities were out of the way, it was a pretty straightforward onward run into Mendoza itself, though the scenery is also beautiful on the Argentine side of the pass, just not quite so steep and twisty. Once we got to the bus station, owing to a lack of local cash and the non-functional state of the only ATM we could find in the terminal, we ended up walking across town to our hostel. This was really only tolerable thanks to the way Mendoza is set out - it's technically a desert city, but thanks to the irrigation canals (some of them dating back before the Spanish invasion) which supply the surrounding vineyards and the city itself from the Andes, there are trees all along the roadsides, with water usually bubbling along. Given the temperature was in the 30s for most of our stay there, the shade and the moisture were much needed!
Our home for the next few days was the Hostel Independencia, just off the north side of the Plaza of the same name. One of the bigger places I've been in recently, and consequently maybe not quite as easy to meet people as it might have been, although having someone you're already hanging around with affects that as well, obviously. The staff were generally pretty cool, although they did seem occasionally to have a wee bit too much of a sense of humour. That evening, I welcomed Pete to Argentina by dragging him out to go get giant bife de chorizo steaks - unfortunately, he couldn't finish his, so I had to. Ahh, the things we do for our friends when travelling. After that, we got chatting back at the hostel with an American lad called Lev, who was hobbling somewhat after doing his leg in earlier in his trip, and ended up going for a quick beer with him, but it had been a long day so we turned in pretty early.
The border post itself is on the Argentine side of the pass, where officials from both countries stamp your respectively in and out, and the scans for fruit, vegetables, dairy etc are made. This would be one of the times that the Force was with me travelling-wise, as we got to the border with a couple of small minibuses in front of us, whereas by the time we had all been processed and our bus was ready to leave, there were 5 double-decker coaches queued up for the crossing - I would probably have done my nut if I'd been on one of them! After the formalities were out of the way, it was a pretty straightforward onward run into Mendoza itself, though the scenery is also beautiful on the Argentine side of the pass, just not quite so steep and twisty. Once we got to the bus station, owing to a lack of local cash and the non-functional state of the only ATM we could find in the terminal, we ended up walking across town to our hostel. This was really only tolerable thanks to the way Mendoza is set out - it's technically a desert city, but thanks to the irrigation canals (some of them dating back before the Spanish invasion) which supply the surrounding vineyards and the city itself from the Andes, there are trees all along the roadsides, with water usually bubbling along. Given the temperature was in the 30s for most of our stay there, the shade and the moisture were much needed!
Our home for the next few days was the Hostel Independencia, just off the north side of the Plaza of the same name. One of the bigger places I've been in recently, and consequently maybe not quite as easy to meet people as it might have been, although having someone you're already hanging around with affects that as well, obviously. The staff were generally pretty cool, although they did seem occasionally to have a wee bit too much of a sense of humour. That evening, I welcomed Pete to Argentina by dragging him out to go get giant bife de chorizo steaks - unfortunately, he couldn't finish his, so I had to. Ahh, the things we do for our friends when travelling. After that, we got chatting back at the hostel with an American lad called Lev, who was hobbling somewhat after doing his leg in earlier in his trip, and ended up going for a quick beer with him, but it had been a long day so we turned in pretty early.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
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