Kent A. Barry

The Trees in Mendoza

It surprised me when I heard that when Mendoza was originally founded there were not any trees(Actually it was a desert).  It´s surprising because every street is lined with trees and a 1 or 2 foot wide canal between the road and the sidewalk.  The canals were installed to irrigate the trees.

The same dry sunny weather is what makes the region so good for producing wine.  They get the water for irrigation from a river that flows out of the nearby Andes.

CD Explosion

I heard about it, but I never believed it...

I had the CD with all of my photos from the first month of my trip in a computer at a internet cafe in Mendoza.  While I was uploading the files I heard a ¨pa-twang¨ and the upload suddenly froze.  It took a minute to figure out, but it turns out the the CD exploded in the CD drive.

I had heard that some CD´s are only rated for certain rpm in a drive, now I know.

At least, I still have the photos I had already put on the internet.

Mendoza, Argentina

I´ve gotten back into Argentina.  Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina.  I did a wine tour yesterday and I can say that they produce some good wines.

My Spanish is getting better.  Now instead of people looking at me with a confused expression when I say something they start talking talking back... and I´m the one with the confused expression.  So I´m taking a week long Spanish class in Mendoza.  It´s just 4 hours a day, hopefully I can start to communicate a bit better.  I haven´t had any problems but things will be easier if I can handle some basic communication.

Santiago

I met a lot of people that had been to Santiago, and nobody had anything good to say about the city.  I didn´t find it that.  Santiago has a nice park in the city, which you can take a gondola up.  At the top there is a good view of the city.  You get a special appreciation for the blanket of smog that never leaves the city.

The food in Santiago is generally fatty fast food stuff.  It´s tough to find fruit or something that hasn´t been deep fried.  My favorite was Schopdog.  They basically serve hot dogs and beer(schop is the term for beer on tap).

San Martin - Pucon

From Bariloche the next thing to do seemed to be to climb the Volcano near Pucon, Chile.  So after the slowest border crossing ever we (me and some friends I met traveling) got to Pucon.  It only takes a day to get up and down the volcano and you get to slide down the snowy part at the top.

The weather has to be clear to get to the top of the volcano, so when the forecast called for 10 days for overcast skies we made a trip to the hot springs and got a train to Santiago.

Bariloche

After Southern Patagonia I took a plane to Bariloche.  Bariloche is something like a large Banff, and the mountains around are similar to Banff as well.  Bariloche even has all of the fondue and chocolate like Banff, but I couldn´t find any sushi places.

I had been doing a lot of hiking and traveling for my first month, and this was a good spot to rest and enjoy the scenery.  I did get out for a 3 day hike.  It wasn´t anything terribly special, but we had great weather.

Any skiers probably want to get to Bariloche some time.  The city has a huge resort that looks like it is well set up.

Icefield Travers Day 7

Our last day was a simple walk back into El Chalten. We walked quickly so that we could get back into town for pizza lunch. The salami cheese and crackers we had been eating for most of the lunches was loosing its appeal. No pictures.

Icefield Traverse Day 6

Our luck with the weather ran out on day 6.  We had some rain and wind, but it wasn't to bad for the only weather on the trip.

To get away from the icefield we had to cross Windy Pass.  And then proceed down a gorgeous valley to our final campsite.

Our final camp was the first which we had in a forrest (or anywhere green).  It was nice to get back vegetation.