Day Eight -- U and Hairpin Turns

On Tuesday the 10^th we drove toward the border between Argentina and Chile to do some hiking. The trip started off with Thomas making a u-turn in the middle of a busy street, right in front of a police officer. The guy was kind enough to let us go with a warning, although he said he could have confiscated our car. Yikes! We drove (cautiously) through an area called Villavicencio, listening to tango music by the famous Argentine Carlos Gardel. The drive was amazing, both for its beauty and its crazy hairpin (literally) turns. I’ve never seen so many and such crazy warning signs on a road before.

We picked up lunch and a hitchhiker in Uspallata, near where “7 Days in Tibet” was filmed. Not to worry- it’s much safer than in the States! He was a very nice university student from Munich, who had studied in Córdoba for a semester and is now traveling throughout Argentina.

Next was our first hike of the trip. We went to a provincial park Christian the hitchhiker told us about where we hiked for two hours near Aconcagua, the tallest peak in the Americas (and the tallest peak outside of the Himalayas, too!) It was beautiful, and pretty neat to be near such a huge mountain. We could see the 300 meter-thick glacier near its peak. Crazy! Even crazier, we saw a bunch of men who had apparently attempted and/or made the summit. We assumed this by their completely wind-burned faces and lips.

Before turning back we tried to see Cristo Redentor, but our trip was thwarted by a closed road. It’s a 90 foot-tall statue of Jesus which sits on the border between Chile and Argentina--you may have seen pictures of it. We decided to skip the super-winding road and took a more direct route back to Mendoza. I fell into a deep sleep, and it’s a shame, because Thomas said it was one of the best drives he’s ever been on. (Hmmm… was he referring to the breath-taking scenery or the fact that he was freed from my endless backseat driving?)

For dinner we treated ourselves to two salads, two delicious 10 ounce tenderloin steaks, one side of mashed potatoes, one coke and a ½ bottle of wine for US$20. Incredible, huh?

--Elva