· Many saludos from Mendoza, Argentina, the land of wine and good ice cream!
Congrats to Chris Haynes who guessed correctly on the previous mysterious picture of viney plants... They were kiwis! We were confused at first as to what fruit looked so much like grape vines, but yet had darker and larger leaves... until we saw the little fuzzy brown fruits hanging off of them. Lucky for us, the owner of one of the hostals that we stayed at gave us a huge bagfull of them for free! Seems as if we are getting equal amounts of donations in fruit and random acts of kindness to our project... We will take it!
We last left off at the ocean port of Valparaíso, a mere 137 meters above sea level. From there we hugged the amazingly beautiful Pacific coast (ohhh so blue and sparkling with big waves) up to Viña del Mar, a super lindo beach resort city which is more or less connected with Valparaíso. We had a picnic on the beach and were about ready to continue riding when we met the very nice 14 or 15 year old biker named Benjamín, whose house happened to be in the same direction we were going. He was a thin, sweet, Chilean boy out on his ritual Sunday ride. He acted as our guide up the coast a bit further into the suburbs of Viña del Mar, stopping at a beautiful look-out point over the ocean, until finally we turned east and he went home. He was truly a sweet heart. Thank you Benjamín!
Karen and our freind Benjamin who helped us find our way. Thanks Ben!!
We said good-bye to the Pacific and had a fairly tranquilo ride east where we encountered more huge plantations of avacado... We had seen some in the central valley of Chile as well on our way up to Valparaíso. These are not your typical monoculture crop. Not only were the acres and acres of avacados protected by 2 barbed-wire fences (about 1 meter apart), but the inside fence was electric, and there were gaurd towers stationed around in the plantations like those you would see in a jail or something. AND, sometimes when we rode by such towers, a mean dog would bark and bark from beneath the tower. This was some seriously protected produce, and apparently for good reason. We arrived at the town of Quillota and stayed at a funky hostal owned by the very friendly Don Lautoro. He is the one that gave us kiwis and we also talked with him about the avacados. Yes, he said, there are "montañas de paltas" (mountains of avacados), and they are worth way more than the mines which he owned. For also in the area were a lot of copper, gold, and sulfer mines. But he was not lying about the avacados... often the hills we saw were completely stripped and planted with thousands of avacados on its slopes. It was a really strange site, these avacado mountains. In addition to all of the forms of protection we had seen around the plantations, Don Lautoro also mentioned that some had "tiger traps", or big holes in the ground with some camo covering it so it would catch people trying to steal avacados. Weird.
A watchtower to gaurd the precious avocados.
We continued on from Quiota and began to climb slightly... past more avacados and fields of artichokes. The day was a hot one, the traffic was pretty constant, and we were completely wiped by the time we reached the town of Los Andes in the evening. Joel had not been feeling quite right since we left Valparaíso. Looking back on it now, we think he had a slight attack of giardia, a water-born purtty protazoan parasite which both of us became quite familiar with in Paraguay. We decided to take a rest day in Los Andes to see if Joel would get feeling better before we began the serious climb over the Andes. So we slept in the next day and made sure everything on our bikes was good to go. We stopped by the bike shop in town at least 5 times that day... for various reasons.
Joel was feeling up to it the next day so we took off early from Los Andes knowing we had a full day of climbing ahead of us. The huge peak of Aconcagua could be seen sticking up all snowy above the range of drab brown mountains in front of us. Aconcagua, at 22,841ft (6962m), is the tallest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayan range. It's big. We rode slowly and steadily, taking breaks every now and then for snacks and water. We rode past several turbines which were creating hydroelectric energy from the water coming down from the mountains. And we rode next to the old railway which used to be the only transportation from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina. The tracks were old and out of use thankfully (it didn't look too safe..) and we marveled at its hundreds of crazy rock tunnels and the way it cut accros the side of steep mountain slopes. I'm sure a great many people died in the making of that railroad.
You gotta love these signs. "Mountain Road, Be Careful. Steep Grades for the next 55 kilometers." Fun times ahead!
We stopped seeing avacados and started seeing cacti and amazing colored rock. It was a beautiful day and we kept riding until late in the evening. The creek which we had been following was about to head a different direction than us, and we knew we would soon begin the famous "caracoles", or the snails, which refer to the 29 curves of steep pavement that lead up to the ski resort town of Portillo. So we decided to make camp at friendly Don Fernando's campsite. He was an interesting fellow in the business of offerring used ski equipment for cheap to folks who wanted to experience the mountains but didn't have the cash to go to the pricey ski resorts. He lived in a mountain valley in the middle of nowhere next to a bubbling stream and seemed a little lonely. It was a chilly night of little sleep under a clear starry sky. We awoke before the sun and headed off as it began to light up the mountain tops around us. It was cold, but once we arrived at the steep curvey caracoles and began the slow climb, we were hot and shedding layers. Curve one. Curve two. Curve three. Break. Curve four. Curve five. Break. The road was very wide and recently paved so the numerous trucks which were passing by did not bother us. It was a little intimidating to look up at all of the curves, trucks snaking along them on a steep mountain face... But we kept on climbing, slowly but surely. After about 3 hours, we were at curve 29, looking down at the snails below. We made it!
Looking down the "snails."
Only about 40 more to go. The road, still climbing, went in a straightaway which lead to the bottom of a ski lift. The road then folded back into its hairpin form and went through long snowshed tunnels which serve as protection from avalanches. The ski lift rose up and up over the road and after a while we realized that the actual skiing trail went down on top of the tunnels and over the road several times (see picture). Pretty cool. The numerous tunnels and switchbacks we encountered were not so cool however, since the tunnels have very little space for bikers... no shoulder at all. Luckily for us, many had a side dirt road you could take instead of the tunnel. For the ones that didn't, we were able to see the traffic very easily on the switchbacks so we could time our passing through the tunnel to coincide with no cars or trucks. We finally made it to the top of these switchbacks where the little ski town of Portillo sits nestled in the mountains. We ate some lunch and caught our breath in the high altitude air. Portillo is a top-notch ski resort that is supposed to have almost perfect conditions for skiing in the winter months. We went to the big fancy hotel there and stocked up on a bit more bread, cookies, and apples since we were getting a little light on supplies. We were delighted to see just behind the hotel in the middle of all of these huge dark mountains an amazing blue crystal clear lake. It was breathtaking. Maybe even more so because of the altitude we were at!
The lake at Portillo where we stopped for lunch.
We continued on and went through the first part of the most confusing border crossing we have encountered yet. All the while climbing, of course. First Argentinian police guy says mumble mumble go up to that building and get a paper. We go to the building. Police lady says mumble no, you can just go ahead to Chilean customs. We leave the big building and pass a guard station. Guard guy says do you have your paper? No. Go back to the building and get one. We go back and enter through a small door where the overhead sign says MONEY EXCHANGE. This can't be right. We enter the building and look confused until a police woman says, do you need your paper? Yes. She then fills out a paper for us, which we give to the guard as we pass by once again. We climb, go through some more tunnels and wonder hmm are we sure that we didn't need any stamps in our passport back there??? If so, that's too bad because we were not going to go back down to get them!
We were tired as we arrived at the famous Christo Redentor Tunel, having climbed up to a mere 3209m (10,592 ft) above sea level. The 3km long tunnel was opened in 1980, and cuts straight through the mountains. Joel was feeling better at this point (although still emitting large quantities of sulferous gases, the tell-tale symptom of giardia) so we decided we would skip the tunnel and go over the old mountain pass. We knew we wouldn't make it all the way to the top that day since there were probably another 35 or more extremely steep switchbacks on gravel road, so we decided to made camp in an abandoned building near the tunnel entrance. This was fortunate for us since the temperature got down to below freezing that night. We put pieces of plastic and some metal in front of the windows to keep out the chilly wind, but it was a loud night with them blowing around... Altitude got the best of us, and made it difficult to sleep. Joel would not breathe for a few seconds at a time and then take large gasps of air, and then not breathe again... Karen tossed and turned and felt naseous most of the night.
The road goes here; Christ the Redeemer Tunnel or the pass over the mountain... The tunnel is a four kilometer long short cut and the pass is 18 kilometers of insane climbing on nasty dirt switchbacks. Good times!
Morning came early and after throwing down the regular coffee and oatmeal, we set off to complete the climb in the chilly mountain air. We were glad we had plenty of experience with hilly dirt roads on the Careterra Austral.. this dirt road we were on wasn't in too bad of shape, comparatively. We criss-crossed a frozen stream a few times, brrrr. It was really amazing how quickly you climb on a bike, even though it seems like you are going slow. Before we knew it we were looking down at the little building we had stayed in the night before, and the mountains and their amazing variety of rock colors were all around us. There were two other abandoned buildings we passed on the way up.. shelters for anyone who might attempt to do this climb in the future! The view kept getting more incredible as we rode up and up. Eventually we reached a set of switchbacks which were a bit more mellow in their steepness, and we charged on to the top quicker than we thought we would. We were immediately blown away with the view across to the Chilean side where there were huge snowy peaks, among them, the great Aconcagua. We were also immediately assaulted by Argentineans eager to get pictures with the crazy people who had come all the way up the mountain on bikes! The sign at the top said 4000m, which is 13,123 ft, but the GPS unit said we were at 12,650 ft. Any which way, we were high! And the cold westerly wind was almost unbearable!
The top of the pass.
At the top we found the famous Christ the Redeemer statue, erected in 1904 to symbolize unity and peace between Chile and Argentina, who fought for a while back in the day over the frontier line. We also found a building/hostal that sold hot chocolate, so we ate lunch and sipped hot cocoa inside. Apparently a lot of climbers who want to climb Aconcagua ride up the Christ the Redeemer pass in a car and then stay at the hostal at the top for 3 or 4 nights to get acclimatized to the altitude before attempting the 20,841ft climb.
After lunch and with rather stiff legs, we began the decent down the Argentinean side of the pass. This side was less steep with a better road, so the riding was pretty fun. The colors of the rocks were even more amazing than the Chilean side, with all hues of red, brown, yellow, purple, and green. Finally we were on pavement again and the road became a straight downhill through the valleys. We flew down to the Argentinean's customs building and after lots of confusion, no direction, 4 different boths, 6 different stamps and one signature (on some random paper), plus our passport stamps, and about 1 hour, we had officially entered Argentina. Oh, and the random paper we had to give to some guard guys 15km down the road from the customs building. Hopefully we're legal now.
We were tired and called it a night at the small town of Puente del Inca, or Bridge of the Inca. The puente del Inca is actually a natural stone bridge over a small river that has all of this funky yellow sulferous build-up all over it (like Joel's giardia belly??). We were happy to find a spot in a little hostal in town because just as we arrived, so did a group of 5 Argentinean bikers looking for a place to stay. Turns out there was room for all of us and we shared stories and ate dinner together at the hostal along with a nice couple from Germany. It was a solid night's sleep.
Puente del Inca.
The next morning was extremely chilly, way below freezing, and as we cleaned our chains (there was a lot of build-up after the dusty dirt roads), we were surprised that the water was freezing as we rinsed the chains off. BRRR. The early-morning riding was mostly in the shade of the mountains and it was honestly the coldest it's ever been since the start of the trip. Fingers and toes were completely numb and our faces had to be covered from the biting wind. Finally we rounded a bend and the sunshine was upon us. We rode through a river valley the entire day, marvelling at the interesting rock formations, cool rock tunnels, and beautiful colors the whole way. We made it to the town of Uspallata fairly early in the afternoon and decided to stay since there was nothing after there untill Mendoza in the way of towns, water, or camping. We stayed in the beautiful municipal campsite with its tall, narrow poplar trees turned yellow with the changing season.
We awoke, bolted the coffee and oats, and were about to roll out when Joel noticed he had a flat tire. #1. He patched it up and we headed off on the northern route to Mendoza. Although the northern route is supposedly shorter (it's probably about the same distance in reality), it's supposed to take the same amount of time as the southern route because it's on gravel most of the time and involves more climbing. Yes, after all of the climbing we had done, we decided to do some more, because we heard the route was beautiful and had a lot less traffic than the southern. So we began climbing again and ran into our 5 Argentine friends doing the same route. We looked at some ancient Incan heiroglyphics along the way and steadily climbed... We passed old mines and still we climbed... And Joel got another flat. #2. Our Argentine friends helped us switch it out speedily and we were on our way again. After about 4 hours, we were at the top with the Argentineans, dusty, hot, and low on water. Up until that point, we weren't sure why the road was called "Ruta del Año." But soon we were going down and down this insane road which wound around and around on the mountains... they say there are about 365 curves in total, hence the name The Year Route. We were happy we were going down and not up. This road did not get enough credit in our guide book, and we ranked it up there with the famous "Death Road" in Bolivia. We dropped down about 2500m, or 8,200 ft in a span of 2.5 hours or so. Our necks, backs, and wrists were sore from our position gripping the brakes for so long on our bikes. You could see the mountains end and the flat, flat Argentine pampa begin. It was an incredible view. Just when the twisty gravel road was about to end and turn into pavement, Joel got another flat. #3. He is officially the flat king. He changed it out and we continued down to where the road switched to pavement. Here sat an old abandoned hotel and the Argentine bottled water provider, Villavicencio. There were people walking around with free water bottles, but we missed out on that. It was getting late and we still had about 50km to ride to make it to Mendoza.
The Ruta del Año.
The pavement twisted about for a bit in the base of the mountains and then straightened out, so straight and so flat, stretching into the distance forever. It will be a different sort of riding from here on out, we thought. The sun went below the horizon, and the sky lit up with pinks and oranges as we cruised along the straight road in a much warmer temperature than we were used to up in the mountains. Soon it was dark and we got out our lights as we made the last push for Mendoza. Around 9 pm we were in the downtown area and had made it to a hostal. It was a terrible hostal called Parque Central that was extremely loud and rather dirty, but we were too exhausted to look any further. We treated ourselves to a delicious dinner and wine at an Italian restaurant. We had made it over the Andes mountains!
We have been in Mendoza for a few days now, enjoying its many plazas, good eats, and tasty wines. We rented bikes one day and did some wine tours in the Lujan de Cuyo area. We rented because we didn't want to ride our own bikes 20km out and back on busy roads after having tasted a lot of wines.... Unfortunately the company we rented with, Bikes-and-Wines was rather unorganized and dropped us off at the wrong place. We still got to see 3 different wineries though, and we really enjoyed biking in the beautiful fall weather from place to place. The wineries all had very different atmospheres and methods for making wine. Very interesting. And very tasty!
Pretty cool huh?
From here we will book it on the flat pampa land to Buenos Aires. We are excited for the different type of riding we will be doing and to experience the pampas of Argentina.
Keep spreading the word about our trip and project! Thanks for all of your support and take care!
Hasta el proximo, suerte a todos!!!
-Karen and Joel
