Mendoza – Mountains, Boarding, Drinking and getting Bogged
May 1st, 2006Check out our most recent trip to Mendoza:
We love Mendoza. This is pretty obvious when you consider that we have travelled down there 4 times in the last year. If we could choose to live anywhere in Argentina it would be here.
Mick lovin Mendoza.
Where else can you:
- Sample the best wines in Argentina.
- Enjoy the best climate in Argentina (arguably).
- Ride the best powder.
- See/climb the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas.
- See the highest concentration of volcanic craters in the world.
- Buy a 5L bottle of homemade, home-blended, foot-stamped wine for 12 pesos on the side of the road.
- Get bogged to the chassis at 3000m and have someone offer to pull you out with a horse.
- See a 2m high limestone penis-shaped formation in a 2km long cave.
I’m sure you get the picture….
Trip 1: Boarding in Las Leñas.
August 2005
Mendoza certainly lived up to all expectations. The mountains were spectacular, the vino was excellent and the women were unbelievable in the sack, according to the cabbie.
Las Leñas was an absolute ripper. We caught the tail end of an Andes snow-storm, so first day was marginal with bugger-all visibility and only a couple of lifts open. Overnight they had about 1m of snow, and then it started to clear up and we had a magical 2 days on the slopes.
Has anyone seen my powder
Mick making some fresh tracks
Famous Marte Chair
Has anyone seen my terrain park, seriously??
As an aside, a comparison of as Leñas winter and summer…
House in the mountains on the way to Las Leñas.
Marte Chair.
Trip 2: Los Penitentes
September 2005
Mel started the trip quite well by leaving her purse in the toilets of a service station in Belen and realising about 100km down the road. A rather futile return trip revealed that it was gone, but given that Popie can loose his wallet every 2nd week and still have fun, Mel built a bridge and got over it.
We stayed overnight in Chilicito and travelled down the Ruta 40 the next day to Mendoza. Espectacular!
The following day we boarded at Los Penitenties, which is west of Mendoza. Absolutely perfect day, and even a little bit of untracked powder up the top. After a little bit of coaxing, Mel tackled the 45° slope with some very stylish turns.
What goes up….
Must come down with style.
Next day we went and had a look at Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western hemisphere. We decided that we would leave the climb for another day and settled for some sunburn instead.
We returned to Mendoza via a backroad, great for photos.
Not so compatable with idiots trying to see if the Stuzuki was unboggable.
So after we got bogged to the chassis in snow at 3000m we realised that we had no shovel or other equipment. So the process involved much kicking and scooping snow by hand for the next 3.5hours. Just before sunset an oldmate rounded the bend and offered to get a horse to pull us out, but fortunately we blazed out of the snow in a cloud of black diesel smoke, leaving the horse rescue for another time.
Spot the tool.
On the trip on the way back to Tucuman we picked up some quality wine from another oldmate. You know it is quality stuff when the sample comes by the schooner and if you think its a bit too sweet, he’ll duck out the back and make a custom blend. She comes in a gallon flagon and costs a hefty 10 pesos.
And we got Mel’s handbag back courtesy of a nice old bloke in Belen who snavelled the bag back from some chicitas who found it in the bathroom.
The lesson: if you lose something, it will either turn up or it will be gone. Either way, you can still get bogged.
Trip 3: Volcanoes and The Cave of the Witches
10-4-06
After Mel had completed a week Geology ‘conference’ in Mendoza – a good spot for a bunch of acedemics to get together and wave their arms and their glasses of superb red wine about, we jumped in the Stuzuki, found a brown road on the map, and headed down to the southern part of Mendoza province.
Our first stop was Malargüe, a sleepy little town most famous for being the cheapest accomodation close to Las Leñas, and finding a room in the innocuously named Bambi Hotel. The next day we caught a tour of one of the only cave systems in Argentina that is accesible, named the Caverna de Brujas, or ‘Cave of the Witches’. Pretty impressive stuff – apparently over 2kms have been mapped out on 3 levels. One of the great things about activities in South America is the relative lack of regulations (probably not always a good thing with respect to environment) which meant we could clamber through the dark and slippery cave, touching everything, skipping over huge cravasses and practically rock climbing in parts. The tour guide thought he was pretty funny and in a typical Argie male way continually cracked sexual jokes about what the ‘witches’ were really doing in here… Then again check out the photo below and you can see why….
After emerging form the cave we went o a quick explore out towards the Chilean border along a gorgeous river (again). Spectacular scenery, as always, especially for the geo.
We found a magnificent little camping/refuge spot called Manqui Malal between the caves and Malargüe. A waterfall streamed over a large limestone cliff at the end of the small gorge where we slept by the river. The limestone sediments were full of well preserved fossils (ammonites up to 60cm for you paleo nerds out there!). Apparently its a pretty big place for technical rock climbing, and it was run by a few Aconcagua guides. To top it all off the guides cooked up a spectacular dinner of Chivo al Horno de Barro (goat baked in a mud oven) which was the best meal we had tasted in a long time – goat is totally underrated! And served up with a quality bottle of wine (of course). Being the only people there for two nights it was all very tranquilo!
The highlight of this trip was Payunia National Park – an area approx 200km x 150km but with over 800 volcanic cones and craters. Very impressive landscapes and colours, totally different to anything we had previously seen in Argentina.
Payunia Lanscapes.
Lookout behind Las Leñas, ALIVE (maybe) icefield in the background, right.
On the way back to Tucuman we stopped in at as Las Leñas and did a snow dance for this years season, went up to a cool lookout where (I reckon) you can see the icefield where the ALIVE plane went down, stayed overnight in a dodge place in a crappy town in our least favourite province, La Rioja, and again manged to navigate the notorious Ruta 38 to Tucuman without getting into an accident but with nerves frayed to buggery.
Trip 4: Picking up the Padres
Another quick drive down to Mendoza a week after the last trip, to meet Micks parents. The obligatory huge steaks and 4 bottles of wine in Mendoza over and done with, we headed west into the high mountains to glimpse Aconcaqua and take in the incredible scenery of the Argentina-Chile pass at Las Cuevas. The town of Las Cuevas was destroyed by a huge rock slide which is a very impressive sight – with boulders up to 3 stories high above the old town sites…scary stuff.
Up a sinuous mountain road with sheer cliffs that had Micks mum covering her eyes and we reached the old Chilean border station. These days most people go through a long tunnel beneath this mountain to cross the border but its a hell of a better view up the top! Also the way to go if you were a drug smuggler, criminal or other dodgy sort since there wasn’t anyone at the Chilean border ‘Castle’ or the Argentine customs office….
From the curvy road looking down to the massive rockslide that buried Las Cuevas.
Mick sitting on the border, Chile behind.
Pedro and Mel
The deserted Chilean border castle.
We stayed in a cosy hostería at Puente del Inca for the night and got up the next morning for some superb views of Aconcagua….
And Puente del Inca (Bridge of the Inca)
And another really dodgy bridge we found and couldn’t resist seeing exactly how dodgy…
To the slight worry of Jenny and Peter, who were just realising that we had no idea where we were going on this next part of the trip, Mel picked a couple of ‘brown roads’ (green is dirt…brown is, well worse) from the map and we headed off into the unknown, which is much more fun than just going to places you’ve already been like a boring tour guide. Consequently, we found ourselves bumping and shaking and sliding along a little road in the province of San Juan when we came along an old sedan on the side of the road with about 10 people (ok, 5 were kids) standing around it in the middle of nowhere. Uh oh, Mick and I said at the same time… ”Another wheel’s come off” (the most common reason for a car breakdown in this country). Turned out we were wrong and it was an even bigger problem so we popped old mate in the back between Micks parents, gave his family all we had in terms of food (a box of chocolates), received a very spiky plant in return, and sped off to the the nearest town (still 50ks or so of dirt away) where the guy assured us he could find some help. I think he was even more concerned than Micks parents about the speed of Micks driving and was probably quite relieved to get out (although we did have to wait for 10 mins in the first little town where apparently he caught someone driving his tractor without asking 10kms from his house…sneaky buggers).
We stayed the night in a small town called Rodeo and after being shafted about 5 times with dodgy directions and closed signs, and having walked what felt like 10 kms in the night, we finally found a fantastic little restaurant with the most delicious homemade pasta. We celebrated with a well deserved 3 bottles of excellent wine and headed back to the cabin, only to be waylaid by a small but very cool pub…. by 3am Micks birthday was well celebrated!
The rest of the drive home consisted of 3 days of eating way too much, drinking way too much and driving through spectacular scenery – much like the previous days.
Impressive view near Las Estancias.
PS. Check out our most recent trip to Mendoza:
Mel