“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water”
We woke up early in our hostel in Mendonza. I, of course, was hung over from too many bottles of the local Malbec wines and content to sleep off the mammoth sized steak I had consumed the night before. Gabby, being the perpetual motivator and just a generally great person, pulled me out of bed.
Checking out the hostel, we found the owners of 3 touring bikes we’d spotted the night before. We got talking to the 3 Argentinians, and, as we were both heading to Chile that day, we decided that we could ride together.
As a small note, there are two ways through the Andes from Medoza to Santiago. You climb to 3200 meters above sea level in both options; however, one route allows you to take a tunnel through the mountain. The other option is to take the old pass over the Andes, which climbs to 3800meters. There was no way we would pass up the opportunity to take the old road over the top. The adventure riders we met decided to take the tunnel.
That was the first time I really felt the cold; it was windy and damp and even the amazing view was not enough to inspire us to spend any large amount of time there. We jumped down and waited in the rain for several hours until we could get across the border into Chile.
You can click through the gallery below for more pictures.
