Alaskawilds

We are skipping winter in Patagonia and will continue our travels in October 2017. So long.

February 2016

Driving through the irrigated vineyards of Mendoza we marveled at the fancy wineries, it felt like we were in California’s Napa Valley.

Malbec

You can tour the different plush wineries, taste the Malbec and buy a case. After an overnight stop in Manzana Historica and more wineries in the Valle de Uco we had seen enough famous grapes, tasted some good wines, so we headed up to the ski resort Las Leñas. Both of us are skiers and grew up on skis, so names like Las Leñas and Portillo ring a bell. As kids we watched world cup ski races held here on TV.

Las Leñas in summer is like many ski resorts without snow, not very exciting.

Las Lenas

We drove on and worked out way up a pass and back down the other side. Valle Hermoso, a pretty valley ringed by mountains and with a small lake was on the other side. At the end of the road there is a steep trail and one can continue over to Chile with mules and horses only. We spent a few nights by a creek, hiked in the valley and enjoyed the solitude in the mountains. Some farmers and some fly fishermen came by, all waved and kept going.

Valle Hermoso

Our camping spot by the creek in the Valle Hermoso

Almost the end of the road

Rhodophiala (in the Amaryllis family) grow high in the Andes

Life along the creek, we went for long walks every day, watching wildlife and finding flowers.

Andean goose

Plant life in the creek

Andean ibises (black faced)

He came by every day, rounding up sheep, goats and horses.

End of January 2016

The eastern slope of the Argentinian Andes is drier than we had expected. However, sophisticated watering systems, some dating back to the indigenous people, allow for irrigating and agriculture.

Slowly we worked our way south. We wanted to visit Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America at 6,961 metres (22,838 ft), and the highest point in the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.

In Cafayate we stocked up one more time, coffee had been hard to come by and we love our two cups every morning. Time and again we bought beans or ground coffee that did not make us happy. It tasted weird, we couldn’t figure out why, maybe they were just cheap beans (robusta) usually roasted with sugar. The cup of coffee in the coffee shops tasted great though. Still, mate is what many people drink and coffee is not that important.

Finally, some decent coffee beans.

Molinos, south of Cachi.

The countryside on the way to Cafayate is amazing.

Red pepper tree near Molinos

Torrontés is a white Argentine wine grape variety, producing fresh, aromatic wines.

After a long drive from Cafayate we headed up into the mountains and settled down at Los Nascimentos Hot Springs.

The road ends at the hot springs. We were alone there for three days.

Bye bye Nascimentos, it was great.

Not a bad view from this camp site at La Cienaga.

Here comes the sun na na na

Heave rain fall in the mountains made for some crazy “baden” crossings.

Uspallata Pass, 4000 m (13 000 ft)

“Christ the Redeemer” The 7m-high bronze statue was commissioned from sculptor Mateo Alonso of Buenos Aires and erected here in 1904. There are two plaques at its base. One reads “He is our peace who hath made us one.” The other, placed there in 1937, declares: “Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than Argentines and Chileans break the peace sworn at the feet of Christ the Redeemer.”

Wildflowers at the base of the mountains near Aconcagua

Aconcagua

Aconcagua again

Uspallata Pass, border to Chile.

Hot sulphur springs at the Inca Bridge. There was a hotel-spa here years ago, now all you see are the remnants.

Leoncito National Park has several observatories.

The only living thing we saw in the pampa were horses.

Tocota pampa, not a good place to cross after rain storms in the mountains.

CHRISTO DE TOCOTA: This Jesus statue stood there all by itself in the middle of nowhere, we camped at the base and felt protected.

In San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)  we said good-bye to our friends and took off for Argentinian border. A new country again, how different they have all been, and how interesting. The border was the usual “gong show” and again, we had to pay $ 160 each to be able to enter the country. Fruits and veggies, dry beans, fresh eggs and such all are “verboten”. We knew that this time, boiled the eggs and had a big cook off before hitting the border. The drive was beautiful, more canyons and desert. We were dying for some green and drove to Salta. Argentinians love car camping and there are many camp grounds to choose from. Some nice and clean, some not so, some with wifi (usually bad) some with pools (usually empty). We wanted to visit the town of Salta and the Dodge dealer. The truck has been running really well, but an oil change was due. So we headed for the Salta municipal campground and got a good dose of Argentinian campground life.

It was summer vacation time (mid Dec to mid Feb) and the camp ground was full, the pool was huge but empty. A big part of their camping experience is grilling and consuming lots of meat, listening to music from the car stereos, drinking mate and socializing. One has to get used to their timing, the afternoons can be quiet when everybody is napping. They come back to life in the evening, start their fires around 10 pm, cook and eat around midnight and sometimes you can hear them and the music until the wee hours in the morning. We found out the hard way and were laughing when we woke up in the middle of the night and were both groping around the camper trying to find our ear plugs.

In Cachi, a little town in the hills we decided to stay for a while. The climate was mild, the air clean and the sleepy town nice. To get there we drove to through more desert, there had been one of those E Nino downpours a few days before and the desert was blooming, covered in yellow Hieronymiellas that grew between large cardon cactuses. We kept going south, headed for wine country (Mendoza area) and to the high mountains again.

Lise and Sissi, Cathedral of Salta

Salta: Basilica San Francisco

Cachi

Andean Flicker

Günter testing the waters

Hieronymiella Aurea