back to Argentina

maybe you are asking your self, why i was for such a long time in Valparaiso. well, i tried to get over the pass to Argentina but it was always closed because of to much snow!! on Saturday finally the day came to leave. with the 2 canadiens we left Valparaiso early in the morning. scheduled travel time: 7 hours. but the traevel will be much longer... already after 2 hours our bus hit an other car on the street and so we had to wait for the police. it took them about 1 hour to sort it out on spot and then we had to go to the police station to fill out a report. that took an other hour. after 2 hours we finally could continue our trip. since the pass was closed for several days, hundreds of trucks were stuck on the road up. they hardly moved so we passed truck by truck. as we finally got to the border, 6 buses were in front of us. each bus took about 1/2 hour to pass! at 6pm we still were up there and an other snowstorm hit the mountains. after passing it took us an other 2 hours for 3km. because the pass closed again, all the trucks coming from Argentina turned around and blocked the street!

with 7 hours delay we finally got to Mendoza. we droped our bags at the hostel and headed for a nice argentinien Steak. well, we found a place to eat but the steak was disappointing. after two weeks Chile i was so looking forward to a good piece of meat... first day in Mendoza i went on a horse ride. we rode cross-country over a field, not very exciting and because there was still a low-pressure area over the mountains i also couln't see the Aconcagua (6959 a.s.l.). the 2nd day i decided to do a wine tour. Mendoza is famous for the argentinien wines! and they are really good! at 10.30pm (normal dinner time in ARG) i met for dinner with Kevin and his argentinien girlfriend. Kevin is a friend of Ian, the english guy from Bariloche. it was a funny and interesting evening. Kevin came as i as a tourist to Mendoza, met this girl and fell in love. i met already a couple of guys who got stuck somewere because of a girl. there must be something about the argentinien girls.

on the 13th of june i went with an other swiss girl in the Park San Martin. there i met a girl from school from Buenos Aires. funny how you always meet people again... in the evening i took the bus to Cordoba.

Cordoba is the 2nd bigest city of Argentina. like it better then Bs.As.! at the hostel i met an english guy i already met in Bariloche. i recognized two strange white things on his head. he told me that he got muged by 3 men in Mendoza a one hit him with a rock on his head. he had luck, that not more happend...!

i viewed a couple of chirches, museums and the oldest university of Argentina. on the 16th of june i watched the ARG - Serbia game. 6 : 0 and the city went crazy!! nobody was working anymore, they closed a 8 lane street and everybody was dancing and singing on it. amazing!

i also wanted to go skydiving but the weather was not good enough! well, maybe i can do it in Venezuela...

on my last day i went to Alta Gracia, a little town in the country side. i had a look at the Che Guevara Museum...

before my bustour to Salta i wanted to have some dinner, not easy to find a restaurant which serves food before 7pm in Argentina!! weird... 8.30pm my bus left and at 8.30am i arrived in Salta. in the bus i met a german girl, Barbara. with her i spend the next fiew days.

we took a little gondola to the "house" mountain and walked afterwards over hundreds steps back to Salta. it was also fathers-day so there was everywhere "feria" in the city. at the park was a folk-band playing and people were dancing to traditional songs. you can already see here the difference from the people from the south to the north of south america. the skincolor, facial features and size. the more north you get the smaller and darker the peoble get.

the next day we went already further over Jujuy to Tilcara. the travel was incredible. the colors of the mountains, from red, green, gray, black to yellow... and all over were cactuses. Tilcara is a very sweet little town almost at the boarder to Bolivia. very nice to stay there for some days... but we already went on the next day to Bolivia. only after 2 1/2 hours of busdrive we arrived in La Quiaca. from there you have to walk over a bridge over the boarder (3440 a.s.l.) where you find on the other side the village Villazon. on the boarder it looked like a ant-hill. they carryed goods from ARG to Bolivia and ran back to start over.