The road to Chile was quite spectacular. It wound between amazingly coloured mountains before arriving in the bustling metropolis of 75 inhabitants, Puente del Inca. What a place. It was seriously desolate. 3 hours from anything, windy, cold, with nothing but a shabby tourist market, a couple of restaurants (more on those later) and of course the Puente (bridge.) First the Bridge. It did look quite cool. It’s a natural “bridge” that looks like it was formed out of mineral deposits from underwater springs. In the early 20th centry there was a large thermal resort and spa that used the hot springs to cure certain illnesses. However, the whole thing is now closed to the public, so you can’t actually walk on the bridge or check out the hot springs.
Next, the hostels. Oh boy. It appears that no one stays here overnight. They either do day trips from Mendoza or stop on the way to Chile. We check out on place that seemed pretty scruffy, but sufficient for one night. Then they told us there were no clean sheets, and after we checked out the toilets, we left. After going down the hall and down some rickety steps and through another passageway (sort of covered from the outside elements) we entered the bathroom where there were holes in the outside walls large enough for a dog to walk through without bending his knees, and the toilets and showers – well, they were something else......We checked into the “hotel” in town where it appeared we were the only people in the place. It looks like this little town might actually get some tourists during ski season, because the hotel was huge. At this time however, it was just us, and we even struggled to find anyone working there when we wanted to pay or ask for anything. It kind of reminded me of The Shining.
Next, the restaurants. One day we went into a restaurant and, tired of eating beef or a variation thereof, we decided to order the pasta. Of course, after showing us the menu, we were told that there wasn’t any. There was only Lomito (a beef sandwich with ham, cheese and egg. Very tasty, but after eating at least 4 of them in the past 2 days, not what we wanted.) We had the Lomito. It was very good. That night we went out to eat again, only to find that everything was closed except for one teeny tiny little cafe with one little old man and his mate running the place. They had an obsession with English football and cooked a mean Lomito. The next day we decided to head back to the first restaurant, where we sat down, ordered Lomito and waited. About 15 minutes later, the man came back to tell us that there was no bread. As there was no pasta either, there was… no food. Great. So, we decided to check out cafe number 3 where we had a tasty… Lomito. But this one was different. While you ate your sandwich, you had a the pleasure of an extremely large, slobbering St Bernard drooling next to your table with eyes on your food.
We did do a nice trek while we were here. On the morning before we shipped out, we took a walk to get views of the tallest mountain in the Americas, Aconcagua. Although none of us had ever heard of it, it stands at just under 7000 metres high and is the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas. Although the top was covered in cloud, we got a decent look at it and had a very enjoyable morning tramping around the area. The landscape is very desolate yet beautiful. I could not help but think of the Uruguayan rugby team who crashed in these Andes mountains in 1972. After experiencing the cold, the altitude and desolation, I am left to marvel at the strength that 2 of the men displayed in walking out.
On to Chili.....
