Day 10, 11 and 12 Upsallata, Puente del Inca and back to Mendoza - Andes, crosses and snow

We arrived in Upsallata in the late afternoon after our relaxing day in Cacheuta.  Upsallata is a small pueblo in a valley between the foothills of the Andes and the Andes.  It is a little oasis of green poplars in a desert of barren hills and valleys.  Our hotel was the Gran Hotel Upsallata, a hotel built in the 1950s by the Peronistas.  The hotel was complete with a bowling alley (non-functional), swimming pool (filled with mud and rain water) and disturbingly wide hallways. We stayed their primarily because our guidebook told us it had a bowling alley and that if one stayed there, they should pretend that ´it was the 1950s and they were rich´.  We did pretend, still the hotel wasn´t great and our primary enjoyments were the second day in a row with a real mattress and a balcony with fine views of the mountains and poplars in the valley.

We walked into Uspallata and asked if there were any hikes in the area.  We were told to walk up a road about 2 km and to look for three crosses.  Then, when we found the three crosses, we should turn left, keeping in mind that the mountain of seven colors will be to our south.  Once we had found the three crosses and the mountain of seven colors, then we would find our trail.

This felt very Indiana Jones-esque, especially because the following directions were relayed to us by two different people, in Spanish.

So we walked for 2 km, and found the three crosses and gazed at the mountain of seven colors.  They were beautiful. And it turned out that the three crosses marked a challenging trail that followed the stations of the cross.  Upon reaching the 15th station, we came to the summit of a tall hill on the east side of the valley, all of Uspallata was below us, the Andes to our west.  It was gorgeous.

We woke early the next morning to catch the bus to Puente del Inca.  Puente del Inca is a natural bridge formed from mineral deposits from a thermal hot spring.  It is also the major base for climbing Aconcagua (6962 meters), the highest peak in South America and the highest peak in the world outside of the Himalaya.  Since the seasons officially starts November 15th, the town itself was a rather quiet and did not offer much, but we were able to hike from the town to the entrance to Aconcagua National Park through a deep valley, surrounded by enormous mountains.  There is still a lot of snow from the recent winter, we hiked past deep canyons and tall cliffs and several lakes.  Our hike ended at a suspension bridge over a rushing river, brown with dirt picked up from the spring melt.  Ancocagua was an enormous mountain to see; there was a glacier on right shoulder, it ended on a large cliff. The ice wall dropping off into the cliff was 300 meters high.  On our walk back to Puente del Inca we were joined by a mangey Saint Bernard.  It walked back to town with us, waiting to make sure we went the right way.  As soon as we arrived in Puente, it went its own way.

If you want to see what this place looks like, watch Seven Years in Tibet.  Much of it was filmed here.  It is probably easier to film a movie about the Dali Lama in Argentina than actually going to Tibet...

The next day we rode the four hour bus to Mendoza and spent our afternoon planning our trip through Brazil (and writing our blog).