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.

Argentina Day 13

Day 13 was all about getting to know Bariloche. So that's what we did.


This one goes out to Wanda.

They had a little market in the town centre (wow, centre spelled with an re at the end comes natural now). This booth sold Rastas.

Little market in town centER.

We took this sketchy gondola up to the top of Mt. Cerro to check out some amazing views.

Mark in sketchy gondola.

Why is David at the top of Mt. Cerro? Weird...

Gorgeous views from the top!

Gyrating cafe at the top of Mt. Cerro. Altitude 1405 meters, or somewhere around 4200 feet.

F*cking amazing!

Picnic at the top. It was so hot that the wine tasted a bit funny. Didn't matter though as we probably paid about 3 bucks for the bottle.

More views from the top.

That's Bariloche down there, or at least a portion of it.

This is by far the biggest chocolate store we've ever seen. It was mahoosive, and filled with madness.

Argentina Day 12 - Bariloche!

On Day 12 we arrived in Bariloche, which is situated in the Lake District, in the Andes. It is a mountain town with crazy architecture and crazy teenagers everywhere. That was the only bummer, crazy teenagers everywhere. Other than that it was absolutely amazing. The day after a bus ride generally means tender vibes as you basically have jet lag. Check-in to the hotel, eat, drink, check out the vibes, and rest. That's what we did on this day.




We awoke to this craziness. That music went on for probably about 3-4 hours (the hum lasted pretty much the whole time I think). At one point, some man went down to the cockpit and asked them to chill out the music. They didn't abide.

Lake District, that is where Bariloche is.

More Lake vibes.

Crazy architecture. Thought we were in the Swiss Alps or friggin' Germany.

Stevie's garden.

That's the Nahuel Huapi lake behind us. Quite chilly this lake.

This is the view from our room. During the day, the lake is in view.

B&W.

Argentina Re-Revisited (Day 11)

So I feel like an arse for not finishing the Argentina posts...I only got through half. I guess that's because I may have been a little ambitious with the amount of photos and stories to go along with them. Gonna try to be more succinct in finishing our vacacion en Argentina.

This was Day 11, our final day in Mendoza. We loved Mendoza, but time to move on. We were basically just killing time as we had to jump on a bus later in the evening, so we went on a walk through a park, went to the zoo, and had some beer and food later.

Mahoosive park in Mendoza...this is the entrance.

What's a day on our vacation in Argentina without a little Dakar action?

This body of water in the park was mainly dedicated to rowing.

Harshest zoo we'd ever been to. I don't think I'll ever go to a zoo again after this experience. We heard stories about monkeys and big cats lurking randomly around the zoo.

Meg & bird.

Sam.

Yeah, that's really where this large feline should be. Can't even stand on its hind legs...

Alpacas = awesomeness.

Harsh. I feel bad for even putting these up.

So skip forward to being on the bus. Bye Mendoza...the sky was lovely on our ride out of town.

Another example of how lovely the sky was.

Darkness + 14-hour bus ride = uncork the vino tinto! We must've been drinking prior to this bottle...

Even though the zoo was harsh and these monkeys should not be in this cage, at least they had some homies to kick it with.