0174 - Uspallarta to Mendoza

15^th Dec

Only a short distance to cover today, so we were not in a hurry to leave.  After a few light showers during the night, it was a clear blue sky this morning, with the sun filtering through the many poplar trees in the camp site.  A very pleasant place to start the day !

The shower facilities looked basic, but the shower itself was excellent with lots of piping hot water.  Only problem was there was no shower rose in my shower to the water hit me pretty hard !  But it worked !

We then drove slowly into town, went to the supermarket and veggie stall to try to get just a few basics for the next few days, but they weren’t very good so we left it.  Even tried to have a coffee in a wifi café – But no wifi, so gave up on that too and headed out of town !!

 

 

 

 

The road from Uspallarta to Mendoza is basically one 100 kilometre long gorge, with about 10 or 15 tunnels bored through the rock, massive snow covered mountains over 6500 metres high to the west (ie forming the spine of the Andes), and a lake in the middle that is brilliant snow run off blue, but quite a bit lower than it is supposed to be due to it being the end of the dry season.

An old disused railway runs beside the road through the gorge – It would be a great tourist attraction if it could be restored and a small train run along it between the two towns. 

We passed a roadside memorial and it was absolutely covered in plastic bottles – I need to find out why they do this – Is it some kind of local way of showing respect, or is it just people getting rid of their bottles ?  Will report back……..

After following the gorge for about an hour we turned off into the little town of Potrerillos – There is a big lake there, but also this is supposed to be a centre for snow skiing, and we wanted to investigate.   We found our way down to the shore of the lake but were disappointed to find that its level is really low, so it is hard to actually get to the edge of the lake.  Even so, we pointed t

he nose of the car into the ever present wind, and had our lunch beside the lake.  Last night in the camp site a local had come around selling fresh hot empanadas out of a little esky on the back of his motorbike – So we had to buy the last 12 didn’t we ?  We had already eaten supper by the time he came round, but we tasted a couple and they were yummy !  So for lunch today I found a way to heat them up in my little cooker, and they were really good !  Still got a couple left……

After lunch it was on round the lake but we couldn’t see any signs for skiing anywhere.  Later we worked out that a road we saw could have been the trail up into the mountains, but as usual, a complete lack of signs makes it difficult !  As we have to go back on this same road to cross the Andes into Chile and on to Santiago, we will inspect a little closer tomorrow !  At one point the peak of 6570 metre Mt Tupungato suddenly appeared between the clouds for a few seconds – Beautiful.  As a nice local touch, its 5682 m neighbour is called Mt Tupungatito – Little Tupungato !!

Almost on the outskirts of Mendoza we came out into flat plains, and miles and miles of grape vines.  Apparently 70% of Argentinian wine is grown in the Mendoza region.  And while passing through these last plains before Mendoza, we suddenly saw, perched on an electrical pole, a great big eagle – We haven’t seen any eagles for a while so we stopped to try and take some pics.  And as we drove off, we then noticed there was another eagle on the next pole, and then yet another one on the very next pole !  3 eagles on 3 poles !    And underneath the last eagle, on a fence post, was another smaller bird of prey – Not sure what it was – Some kind of falcon ?

And then it was into Mendoza.  We decided to go and have a look in the city first – The entire city was flattened by a major earthquake in about 1860 something, and when they rebuilt the city they did so making extra wide treelined streets so that if they had another earthquake the rubble could fall into the streets without blocking them.  Additionally they created lots of wooded plazas throughput the town so people had a place to run to in case of another major earthquake.  The result is a city with a very pleasant open feel today – Most enjoyable.

However this was tempered by us receiving 2 warnings from locals to be careful in the city – The first from another car at a set of traffic lights who saw we were foreign and told us to be very careful in the city, and the second from the manager at the camp site we went to, who basically said the same thing – There are some very rough areas of Mendoza, and if you don’t know where they are, you can get into trouble quickly.  This is the first time we have been warned like this anywhere, so we were somewhat surprised, and a little more circumspect as we spent an hour or so exploring the city.  Hmmm – Give me little country towns any day !!!

Anyway, nice camp site on a hill over the city, and we will just spend one night here before heading back to Upsallarta, and then the next day over the border and the Andes into Santiago.

Pics are here :-

https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0168UspallartaToMendoza?authkey=Gv1sRgCMWGtd-Q6pn6JQ#