Argentina Day 10 - First mission to the Andes.

Somehow Day 10 got skipped. That's unfortunate 'cuz it was an amazing day! This was our first trip into the Andes, and involved lots of driving. We rented a car and went on a crazy mission that involved beautiful scenery, random perros, a long drive on a sketchy dirt road, and wild times in the main plaza in Mendoza. This is a long one. Hope you enjoy it.


This is where the Andes begin.

Starting our ascent into the Andes, we stopped off at this spot to snap a couple flicks. The lake behind Mark there was a real nice aqua blue color. Tough to tell in the photos...

Us.

The license plate on our rental car. Nice and simple.

We put this badboy to the test.

Random perro marking his territory. We ate lunch in this town, called Uspallata. This is the area where Seven Years in Tibet was filmed. Weird...

The start to the off-road adventure.

That sign loosely translates to animals on the loose.

Andes vibes.

Meg in the middle of the road to nowhere.

Time to ponder.

Uspallata is where we were. 28km down, a shit load more to go.

So Mt. Aconcagua is the highest peak in the Southern Hemisphere. We couldn't see it as it was so damn cloudy. We made an attempt though. Translate if you like. The altitude where this photo was shot is 3,100 meters, or roughly 9,500 feet. Mt. Aconcagua is 22,841 feet high (thanks Google).

Sketchy, winding dirt road. Mendoza is somewhere down there in the background.

Yet another random perro. This guy was pretty cute. Scraggly is good.

This random band started playing in the main plaza in Mendoza. We stayed a while and watched. Can't remember if we were drinking in the plaza...probably. If not, we were likely a bit inebriated.

Oh, proof of inebriation [sic]. Cotton candy is good. It also doubles as a goatee.

Mark had had enough of the cotton candy.

This is a short clip of part of the drive. It was an amazing drive...this portion seemed to be where maybe some water had once flown. There was a larger clip, but would have taken forever to upload it.

Weird scene. They were jammin'.

360 degree view of the middle of nowhere, Andes.