Alta Montana (Mendoza, Argentina)

After my extended stay in Buenos Aires, my next stop in South America was the city of Mendoza, an attractive city of tree lined avenues and large public squares, which lies close to the foothills of the Andes and is primarily famous for producing wine, particularly Malbec. It is also the closest city to Aconcagua, the 6960m peak which is the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere, and so a regular stopover for those climbing the mountain. Despite my mountain scaling exploits in Tanzania, Aconcagua is a little beyond by mountaineering abilities, so instead I spent a great few days sampling the local wines and walking in the foothills below Aconcagua.

Aconcagua (6960m)

The overnight journey to Mendoza was long at 13 hours, but incredibly luxurious as I got my first taste of coach travel South American style. I had a fully reclining leather chair with its own TV in front, two meals during the journey and even the offer of tea, coffee, whiskey or champagne after dinner! Internal flights are relatively expensive and the railway network largely abandoned in South America so coach travel seems to be the predominant form of transport for both tourists and locals travelling long distances. As a result, the coaches in South America have been fitted up to allow you to travel in style, an approach that seems to have escaped National Express and Megabus in the UK. I therefore got a great night's sleep and arrived in Mendoza early the next morning, ready to explore a new city.

Coach travel South American style

I spent my first afternoon in Mendoza taking a walk through the huge Parque General San Martin at the other end of the city from my hostel. The park takes up nearly 1000 acres of land overlooking the city and includes a football stadium, velodrome, amphitheatre, rowing lake, zoo, and a botanical garden. Such is its size that it is criss-crossed with a series of roads to allow people to drive around the park, but I was ready to stretch my legs after thirteen hours on a coach and so set off for a long walk around the park. At the far end of the park, and up a steep hill, I came across a huge monument commemorating Argentina's independence from Spain. General Jose San Martin (who the park is named after) led the Argentine forces seeking independence from the Spanish crown at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and also played a key role in assisting Chile and Peru's struggles for independence, and so many buildings, roads and public spaces in Argentina are named after him. From the monument I could see right across the city so it was worth the tough climb, one which everyone else seemed to have avoided by driving to the top!

Statue in Parque General San Martin celebrating Argentina's independence

My wanderings around the park also led me to the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas, a 45,000 seater stadium that had been built inside the park for the 1978 World Cup. With no sign of any security guards and the gates to the stadium wide open, I was able to walk in to the stadium to get a few photos, hoping not to get apprehended as a British tourist wandering around in a stadium named after the Argentinian name for the Falkland Islands! Later in the week the stadium hosted another pre-season friendly between Boca Juniors and River Plate, similar to the one I had attended in Mar del Plata - this time the match was a total sell out though so I had to make do with watching the game on TV

Estadio Malvinas Argentinas

That night, the hostel ran a free empanada making class, which gave me a chance to learn how to make what seems to be a staple part of the Argentinian diet. Empanadas are rather like small cornish pasties, but can be filled with either meat, chicken, cheese, ham or vegetables, although the traditional recipe we followed used beef, onions, a small amount of boiled egg, and some fresh herbs. They are very common across Argentina and also very cheap, making for a handy snack or starter. Following the lesson, I sat chatting for a couple of hours with an Argentinian couple who had also taken part, which with neither of them speaking much English gave me a great chance to use my improved Spanish skills!

My first attempt at an empanada

Fresh from the oven

My two empanadas!

During my stay at the hostel, they also laid on a wine tasting evening and a fantastic asado (Argentinian bbq) at which we were treated to some absolutely amazing steak and plenty of red wine. However, although I was keen to try Argentinian food and sample their wines, my main reason for visiting Mendoza had been to get in to the mountains, which I managed to do on three occasions during my stay here.

For some incredible pictures of the mountains around Mendoza and an idea of some of the adventures that can be had there, I'd recommend checking out the blog of my friends Paul and Kirsty who travelled here last year. In my case, as a solo traveller and with little in the way of mountaineering equipment, I had to set my sights a little lower and go on a few organised trips with local tour companies, but I did get to see some spectacular scenery and some local wildlife.

First up I took a scenic drive along the Alta Montana route, an organised tour along Route 7, the main highway between Buenos Aires and Santiago, which crosses the Andes to pass from Argentina into Chile. The highlight of this trip was the drive up to the original border crossing (dating from before a tunnel through the highest point of the Andes was built), which involved driving up a gravel road with several tortuous switchbacks as snow began to fall around us. The border crossing sits at around 4000m above sea level and is marked by a huge statue called Christ the Redeemer of the Andes, which was installed in 1904 to acknowledge resolution of a long running border dispute between the two countries.

The Alta Montana route

The road up to the statue

The Christ the Redeemer statue

Unfortunately the weather was too bad for us to stop at a viewpoint for Aconcagua, but we did stop at Puente del Inca, a natural bridge over the Vacas River, which has been created by the minerals coming up from nearby hot springs. The bridge has an illustrious history having been visited by Charles Darwin in 1835 and having also been the site of resort and spa in the early twentieth century which could be accessed by rail. Sadly, the resort closed after being badly damaged by a landslide and the train line, though still visible in places no longer functions, though it did once pass through the Andes and go all the way to Chile. The bridge itself is also now too unstable to walk over and so has been closed to the public since the mid 1990s

Puente del Inca (the stone building is part of the remains of the spa)

After spending most of that day cooped up in a minibus, I was itching to get out walking in the mountains and so spent the next two days doing just that. The first of these was a relatively short trek to a waterfall where we abseiled off a large rock next to the waterfall. It had been billed as a 'half-day trek', but with only an hour and a half worth of walking and one 18m abseil I was left a little disappointed, particularly as we then had to wait another ninety minutes for a bus back to Mendoza!

Half way down the abseil

A cat gets acquainted with my bag while I wait for a bus back to Mendoza

Fortunately, the following day I was able to do a longer trek in the Cordon del Plata, a group of mountains forming part of the long chain of mountains that make up the Andes. Along with a guide from Colanguil and two other walkers, we headed to the summit of Cerro Arenales, a 3376 metre peak surrounded by a number of much higher snow covered peaks. As well as getting a great view of some of the surrounding mountains (others were obscured by thick cloud), we were also lucky enough to spot some Andean wildlife as a large condor flew directly above us for several minutes and we then saw three guanaco ahead of us on the trail who stopped to look at us.

Cordon del Plata

Walking in the Cordon del Plata

View of Cerro Vallecitos - a mountain my friends Paul and Kirsty climbed last year

A condor flies overhead

Lunch at the summit of Cerro Arenales

A guanaco says hello

At the conclusion of the walk we met a Norwegian couple who had had to turn back 100m metres from the summit of Cerros Vallecitos (5500m) the night before due to a heavy snow storm, having attempted to reach the top during the early hours of the morning. Despite feeling ashamed that our mountain climbing exploits were a little tame compared to theirs, we had a good chat about our relative experiences of travelling in South America before we said our goodbyes and headed back to Mendoza.

After a further day in Mendoza, I then caught a bus to Santiago in Chile, which luckily afforded me another drive through the same mountain roads, and this time, a much better view of Aconcagua. The four hour wait to get through the Chilean border crossing was less enjoyable, but there can't be many border crossings that are as spectacular so I can think of worse places to be stuck. More about my first few days in Chile in the next blog - watch this space.....