Mendoza....nearly at the beginning

Our bus to Mendoza was a beautiful drive through the Andes mountains, spectacular but more so knowing that no matter how big a mountain we saw was, we were going to climb one that was bigger. Another scary thing was even at an altitude of a little over 3000m the landscape was sparse and covered in scree, an environment normally reserved for much higher.


Excitement was building, getting of the bus we saw a girl carrying so much gear it made us look light weight, something I was sure we would never see. Chatting to her, she had just come from Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest mountain, she had also done Kilimanjaro and as her first mountain in her summits expedition she had climbed Everest. Holy shit. It looks like there might be some interesting company. What are we doing?? Looking at the itinerary 5th January is an airport transfer day, it is the 2nd today so at least we have three days to prepare for that.

Mendoza is a beautiful little city, a woeful selection of cameras, but a beautiful city. Apparently levelled by a earthquake 40 years ago, it is now wide long boulevards with the streets tree lined. The food is so good, that hungry we dropped into what turned out to be a Mexican restaurant and ended up eating Guacamole at of a cup. Coffee, chocolate, gelato....my happy, happy taste buds.
Location: Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina

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