Day 30 - 31 The Wonders of Cuyo

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We reached the village of Uspallata early in the evening, about 100+ Km on the western outskirt of Mendoza, and had to settle into a local hostel for the night.

The hostel at Uspallata had given us the worst experience so far.  Although it looked clean enough, but a bed bug discovered Julia.  She was bitten badly on a few spots.  By the way, no insects like me.  Anyway, it was just before 6 am, still dark.  So we decided no use complaining, just leave as all payments were already settled at check-in.  Then what really got me worked up was, the front door was dead locked.  To cut a long story short, we woke up the owner in the house next door finally and berated them for this deadly practice of locking the door and not letting anyone know where the key was.  In case of fire, this is absolutely deadly.  He offered to refund all monies for the bed bug problem, and we left in disgust.

As it turned out, the timing was perfect.  Route 52 to Mendoza City is a gravel track which meanders over a high mountain pass to the other side.

And dawn was breaking as we climbed the mountain with the grand Andes in sight.

As we peaked the pass at about 3000 meters, the sun was barely showing through thick mist on the other side. The visibility was at time, down to less then 5 meters, on a narrow, winding track, with blind corners and steep cliffs on the side, it all meant a very interesting and slow drive.  

But the reward came about 20 mins later.

After the sun gathered strengths, the mist went away, a sea of cloud with the sun on top panned into the horizon….Wow!  

We had a greedy time with our cameras….despite the 1 Deg temp. outside. When adrenaline is running, what cold!!?

The best moment came when we reached the top of the clouds, with the flowing mist around us, it was simply an epic experience.

But once we dropped below the cloud top, it was all misty and almost zero visibility again, until we slowly descended another 400 meters to get to the cloud base, the foothills came into clear view.  It was a 50 km drive on loose gravel meandering through this mountain pass, and it took nearly 3 hours to complete.

We bypassed Mendoza city, and went straight towards our next destination, St Agustin del Valle Fertil in San Juan Province, a good 400 Km away.  Funny, when we didn’t look for them, everywhere was service stations, but as we drove into San Juan City to get fuel, it was nowhere to be found, until the very last moment.

The drive from San Juan was pretty plain sailing. The final 100 Km of the road was through a semi arid desert with undulating roads, like a roller coaster, up and down and up and down…which reminded of Death Valley in California.  The road was built on sand dunes, and it follows the profile of the landscape.

And a family on their long bike tour...really admired them.

We settled into a motel room in the village of St Augustin del Valle Fertil by the late afternoon, and looked forward to seeing some wonderful landscape in the nearby Moon Valley.

The Fertil Valley, is a desert area, and we had a cool morning with a perfect day ahead.  So after a leisurely breakfast, we drove 60Km or so down the road to explore two UNESCO listed World Heritage sites, the Ischigualasto ( Valle de la Luna ) and Talampaya National Parks.

It was a good hour of drive to the entrance of Ischigualasto ( Valle de la Luna) or Moon Valley, due to its moon like geological outlook.  We were greeted by the rangers, and after going through a ritual of form filling, and an introduction video ( in Spanish ) of the park, we drove into a moonscape, fashioned by million years of water and wind corrosion.

In many ways, it reminded me of Mungo National Park in the south western part of New South Wales and some parts of UTAH, USA.

The drive into the park along gravel roads, was simply sensational with varied geological formations wherever one looks.

Good pleasant weather, 23 degree mild, but can be hot under the sun. It was dry and pleasant, typical desert condition.

Reluctantly, it was time to drive out to our next destination. But we had covered over 40 Km inside the park in a space of 4 hours.

Twenty minutes or so later,  we crossed the provincial border of Cuyo and Rioja Provinces.

60 Kms later, we were at the rangers' office of Talampaya National Park, another site that is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Unfortunately, the rules here are different, we all had to leave our car at the car park, and waited for a bus for a guided tour into this geological wonder.

The wait was not short, but it was worth it.  Look at these shear walls....

And the ancient people left their mark in the form of rock arts.

And walls flanking a flat valley, normally flooded with water in the wet season.

These would be a magnet for the extreme rock climbers.

More ancient stories.

Just never ending geological wonders.

The ancient Egyptians would have a fantastic time here.

But good things must all come to an end, it was a three hours worth of landscape feasting, on a perfect day.

The township of Villa Union was only 60 Km or so to the north, and we reached there, just in time for a glorious sunset.

Next Post : Day 34 - 35 Norte Treasures
Other Posts: Index - 2013 Argentina-Chile self drive.

Day 28 - 29 Ciao Patagonia, hello Cuyo

Previous Post: Day 25 - 27 Lakes district of Argentina ( Bariloche )

Photo Album: Ciao Patagonia, hello Cuyo
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With such a small town, Chos Malal that is, one would think leaving it, should be quite straight forward, and the maps shows so too.  It took a 5-6 Km diversion to figure out the new route back to the high way because of extensive road works, and there were no signage, except “cerrado” signs (“closed”) or a pile of dirt here and there, blocking the streets.  We have to navigate through a labyrinth of irregularly formed one way streets through a poor village, and a general sense of directions to figure out which way forward.

Then comes the exit police check point further down the highway….this time they were not as friendly as the one yesterday. The policeman waved us down to the side of the road, and I volunteered the paper works for the car, which normally was sufficient.  But he seemed to have taken a liking reading it, it was a good 5 minutes flipping through a single sheet of paper and a small wallet of car registration cards.  Then he talked to his superior, who demanded for both of our passports, then another deep discussion ensued.  It was a good 15 minutes, they surveyed the car, checked our stamps in the passport, flipping through all the pages.  I am sure there is some deep philosophy hidden in them books, must try to learn more about my passport next time.  But not even asking to open the boot or the car etc., just intense discussions amongst themselves….then after 15 minutes or so, returned everything and waved us on….Ciao and Gracias!  For a moment, Julia thought they were illiterate..!!

So it was an interesting start to an otherwise long and boring day of a 540 Km drive, on mainly good roads, except…good roads. 

We crossed into Mendoza Province before lunch, and finally left  Patagonia. With one last look over the dry river bed of Rio Barrancas, it was a sad  Ciao to Patagonia and isolation, and a warm hola to Cuyo and crowds, we thought !!

Mendoza welcomed us with great scenery, still plenty of vastness. 

And hour or so later, we encountered a 50 Km section over a bed of lava fields, with loose gravels, rocky and winding track.  Some lava tubes are exposed where they were cut through by water corrosion over thousands of years.

Another shrine for a folk saint, Delinda Correa, by the roadside, they are getting more frequent, a sign of population, perhaps.  Delinda Correa is the local patron saint for water, here is the link to the background of these shrines, Delinda Correa Shrines.

As we moved on, the towns are becoming bigger, even a small dot on the map has a big avenue running through the middle.  Roads are becoming better, except the pot holes are bigger at places if one is not careful.  By the time, we were 150 Km south of San Rafael, traffic was definitely getting heavier, and pots holes fewer.

A big street of ( probably about 50 Km ) cumulus was gradually developing into a storm cell right in front of my windscreen as the road progressed. And rain was definitely visible at the end of it, not where we were heading, luckily!  But the wind was seriously howling as we moved under its spell.  The double ( triple?) decker bus in front of us was swaying from side to side, very eerie! This is the sort of sight one can only see on a big wide open plain. Gliding pilots love to see the developing cumulus for its thermals, but not when it is over developing into a storm cell, once it becomes dark, it is time to get back onto the ground.

Really loved to have a 4x4 and drove into these hills to check them out.

San Rafael is a large town, by the standards thus far since leaving Punta Arenas in the deep south.  It has traffic lights everywhere, that’s my gauge.  By now, we are down to our last biscuit, literally! The Tourism Information centre was nowhere to be found on the main road in.  One would think that they should be at the entrance end of the town where they would be the most useful….anyhow!

It is a nondescript and busy town, what else can I say about it.

Well stocked with food and water, and then full up with fuel, we were ready to hit the road early the next morning.  For the first time in nearly 3 weeks, we encountered serious traffic, on the way out of San Rafael, and this was a Saturday morning.  There were cars overtaking another overtaking cars….wow, that was something.  I nearly had to ditch my car into the nearby dirt to avoid a on coming car that failed to overtake a long line of slow going trucks, fortunately, he found a gap to get back into his lane…lights blinking!

And the ever present snow capped Andes were always in the distance....

This part of Argentina seems to be well developed, and quite rich with the fertile soils around.  For over 100 Km near Mendoza, it was town after town, traffic light after traffic lights, closely knitted together.  And we saw the first divided 4 lane freeway for the first time in at least 3 weeks.

Instead of going to Mendoza, another mega city of Argentina directly, shortly before it, we decided to swing off to the west towards Chile on Route 7.  This route took us onto a scenic drive following the mountain passes to the border, and hopefully in time to walk around Aconcagua Volcano, near the border

  

Here is another one of the Delinda Correa shrines along the highway, where people left bottles of water offerings.  It looked that, there are many worshipers.

And the geological features continued to amaze.

The drive was very winding, and can be quite dangerous with landslides possible. All the surrounding mountains are slide-prone.  In fact, just a few weeks ago, it had a land slide and closed the route. However, the road is well paved.

Some really interesting tracks, probably 4x4 only, too bad !!

Unfortunately, when we reached the entrance of Aconcagua Provincial Park, it was too late in the afternoon, closed.

But we can certainly get a taste of the rugged terrain up there.  It would have been some interesting hiking if there were time.

So we headed back towards Mendoza, thinking of getting into a comfortable hotel in a big city.

It was nearly 7 pm. by the time we reached Uspallata ( after having lunch there in the early afternoon), we planned to take a 105 Km gravel road to Mendoza, the shorter way.  Google Map was showing us the road we intended, but after going on it for about 3 Km or so, it was getting narrower, more like a 4x4 track. 

Fortunately, another car was coming our way, reading between the Spanish words and animated expressions of the other driver, I got the feeling that this was not the way to go as far as this little car was concerned.  So we turned back and settled into a hostel in Uspallata, every other hotel is full, some small busy village here! 

The hostel owner told me that the track we were on was for 4x4 only….thanks to Google Map!  Fortunately, my driving sense told me something was not right.

So it was to be a quiet night at the village of Uspallata We were planning for an early morning start......

Next Post : Day 30 - 31 The Wonders of Cuyo
Other Posts: Index - 2013 Argentina-Chile self drive.