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Dec. 21, 2006 Yesterday, Wednesday, December 20, I finally got my chance to see Mount Aconcagua , in the Argentine Andes . With an elevation of 22,841 feet , Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere . I viewed it from some distance, on the highway that leads to Valparaíso and Santiago , Chile . I started in Buenos Aires , where, Monday evening around 7, for about US $40, I boarded a TAC bus headed to Mendoza , a city in western Argentina that is the capital of the state of Mendoza , and Argentina ’s fourth city. This was a 650-mile ride right through the middle of the Pampas, which are Argentina ’s answer to the Great Plains . I didn’t get to see much till daybreak, but that was fine. We didn’t get to Mendoza till about noon on Tuesday. I got a room in a hotel about 100 meters from Terminal Mendoza , a huge U-shaped 75-platform bus station. An hour or so later, I bought a one-day Aconcagua excursion ticket on LAC (not TAC) for about US $23. This would amount to 13 passengers, a driver and a guide, in a minibus. We started at 7 AM Wednesday. You can see a few peaks in the distance from Mendoza , but you have to go west about 100 kilometers before you really start climbing into the Andes . On the way we saw from afar Tupungato, at 21,855 feet , Argentina ’s second peak, and still taller than anything in North America . Next to Tupungato is Tupungatito, an active volcano. These mountains are on the Chile-Argentina frontier. We stopped in several small towns and hamlets on the ascent, including Uspallata, Potrerillo, Picheuta, Pulvareda, Penitentes, Puente del Inca and Las Cuevas. Puente del Inca is a natural bridge where the Incas had a trail. It’s a long way from Perú, but their dominion was vast. The site had been built more recently with thermal baths and a hotel, but they were destroyed by an avalanche in 1995. You can still see the remains. Here’s a picture of the natural bridge: In Picheuta we saw also a bridge built centuries ago by the Jesuits, who had a mining operation on the Picheuta River in those days. Further along the road, the van stopped and we all got out for the view of Aconcagua itself. Though summer is just beginning in Argentina , Aconcagua was snow-capped, and many of the lower peaks had streaks of snow. Here is exactly the view we had, which is about as close as you can get in a vehicle: The Andes are not second to the Himalayas however. The Tian Shan and Pamirs of China and Central Asia , which I visited in 1998 are higher, but I didn’t see the tallest mountains there. Before now, the highest peaks I had seen are Chimborazo in the Ecuador and Ixtaccíhuatl in México. So Aconcagua is a new first for me. Spanish has several words for ‘hill’, including ‘colina’, ‘loma’ and ‘cerro’. It has several words for mountain too, including ‘montaña’, ‘monte’ and ‘pico’. But for some reason, Aconcagua is called ‘Cerro Aconcagua’ (Aconcagua Hill). Some hill! We stopped for lunch in Las Cuevas, within a mile of the Chilean border. This was a typical mountaineering restaurant, with wall and ceiling panelled with wood. Then we returned. On the way back we stopped briefly at Penitentes, so called because blocks of black basalt on the mountainside look like penitent monks on a pilgrimage. This is a ski resort. There is some but not much snow on the slopes at this time of year, but the driver said that there are snowfalls up to 3 meters deep in June, July and August. Our maximum elevation was around 11,000 feet , and it was cold up there. We got back to Mendoza about 6. The Argentine Andes are not as beautiful as the Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian Andes . Though the part of the Peruvian Andes I saw in 2004 was pretty barren, I know there are beautiful, green ranges there, just as in Colombia and Ecuador . However, the Argentine Andes have very little vegetation. Some mountains have a scattering of sagebrush, but most are solid, awesome masses of rock. Mendoza gets only 8 inches of rain annual. Guanacos inhabit this part of the Andes , but we didn’t see any. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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