Vallecitos

Vallecitos is a small mountain range near Mendoza which is a part of the Andes. I spent three days over there, sleeping in a refugio at 2500m and setting out on treks from there. The first day we went up to another campsite at 3200m. The next day we went to a mountain-top called Los Arenales, which is 3700m up and there were many condors flying by, sometimes passing within 100m above our heads. The last day the weather was bad so it wasn't possible to climb the 4500m San Bernardo mountain, as was the plan, so we walked to another campsite at 3800m, hoping the clouds would open up and reveal the mountain valley we were in, but it didn't work out that way. Still, there was breathtaking scenery and great exercise.

Mendoza

Wine country. That's about the only reason to come here. Mendoza is a smallish city in the mid-Western bit of Argentina, in a very arid region that is great for producing Malbec, an Argentine specialty. The wines here are great, the city is nothing special. I went on a wine tour yesterday that was lovely and tomorrow I'm off to a three day hike in the nearby mountains (about 4000m or so).

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a beautiful port city near Santiago, with about 250,000 people and wonderful graffiti. I spent three nice days there and am now in Mendoza. I also parted ways with Lara and Megan, two wonderful girls I've been traveling with on and off for a while.

Pucon

Today, I climbed up to almost 3000m on one of the most active volcanoes on the world (volcano villarica)! Sweet! It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We arrived at the office at 6:30 in the morning and took an hour-long bus ride to the base camp. After that, it was five hours up and two hours down. On the way up, we used crampons about half of the time, which is tiring whereas on the way down we were able to slide on the ice, using our pickaxe and our heels as breaks. It's very safe but it does feel like it's easy to lose control of your speed because we were sliding down some steep, iced-over hills. The snow had been heated over by the unusually hot summer, so that made conditions more challenging. It was interesting- I was controlling a pickaxe that served as my breaking device while sliding down a mountain, digging into some rough ice that was slushing up all over my hands while the whole thing was vibrating. But in case of a mistake, there was a clear path with a safe end - no risk of injury involved. Anyways, at the top there was lava and breathtaking views. I had never been on such a tall part of earth in my life.

Some of these pictures are from the first day I tried and failed to make it up because of the weather conditions.