There’s No Easy Button in Argentina

Whenever we say that something should be easy we always ask one another “But what country are we in?” The simple life isn’t so simple and the simple things are so simple. I’m talking about things like mailing post cards or getting change. I spent close to an hour in the post office getting postal stamps and then waiting in line again in order to give them the clerk to finally send them.  The stamps are overpriced and it will take about a month to get back to the States.

Argentina’s wine country is located around Mendoza. It’s located in the foothills of the Andes in a dry climate. The have some excellent wines. We have really come to enjoy their Malbecs. Thus past Saturday, we took the local city bus to Maipu, a suburb of Mendoza, and rented bikes to tour wine country. The bikes were Walmart caliber at best when new but these were a few years old. I’m not a wine snob but I am a bike snob. The roads were narrow. Some wineries weren’t open. There is no easy button but we did manage to tour and sample some wineries. We didn’t want to sample too much since we were concerned about riding on those roads. We dealt with narrow roads, closed wineries and hot temperatures but now came the hard part. Getting change to get on the bus and get back to Mendoza. I had 20 centavos on me and needed $3.40 of change. Bus drivers will not make change or accept notes. I asked a family in front of the rental place if they had spare change. As it turned out they were from Durham, NH and didn’t have change either so were waiting for a taxi. They offered to share the cab if we split the cost. I agreed but the taxi was to small to accommodate all of us. The radio controlled taxi driver called and said a taxi was on its way. We waited and waited. The driver probably took the Durham family back to Mendoza only to turn around to come back for us. Taxi drivers don’t expect tips here but Americans tip and he probably thought that he could get 2 tips back to back. Unfortunately, it is about 40 minutes one way to Mendoza. I knew it would be awhile so I walked down the street to a small store and bought an overpriced soda in an attempt to get enough change for the bus. The store clerk would only give me 50 cents change back, I asked him to give me change for the bus but he wouldn’t .  After waiting and waiting for the taxi, Susan and I launched a plan. She went into the store and bought another overpriced soda and got another 50c back. I did it one more time. We now had $1.70 in change and enough for one fare.  Buses come about every 20 minutes and when it did we positioned ourselves in the middle of the queue, enough that there would be people behind us anxiously waiting to get on. We split the coins between us so that the driver would know we both had moneda. Susan got on the bus and entered all her money in the ticket machine and pressed the button. No ticket came out but it looked good. She proceeded to the back of the bus. I finished entering the money and got the ticket. We were both on the bus.  We didn’t want to scam the system. I would have gladly paid 5 or 10 pesos to get on the bus but it wasn’t an option and the taxi option wasn’t working either.  There is no easy button.“

On Monday, we took another bus to Thermal Hot Springs located about an hour outside the city. We learned our lesson from before and went to the Omnibus station and bought a round trip ticket. We waited about an hour for the bus. The bus took about an hour and a half to get there. A German tourist who has traveled in Argentina for 2 years complained that it was the slowest bus that he was ever on. We spent the afternoon in the hot springs. There was a nominal fee to enter. There were 7 hot springs and 2 cold springs and one natural steam bath in a cave. We wanted to catch the 5:30pm bus but it never showed up. We waited for the 7 O’Clock bus. It was late and this bus was even slower than the first bus. I could have ran faster. After an hour and a half, the bus pulled off the side of the road and we left this bus and entered a different one. Apparently, it was experiencing some mechanical problems. Another 40 minutes to get back to Mendoza. By the time we get back to our hotel and shower, we are officially on Argentine time, dining at 10 in the evening. We are getting used to it. Eating at 7pm sounds strange to us now.

After dealing with issues using the local bus to wine country and the suburban bus to the hot springs, we decided to take a packaged tour of the mountains instead of taking the bus (by the same bus line as the one used to go the springs) to Puente del Inca, the town at the base of Aconaqua park. The tour was much better than expected. I guess sometimes you have to throw money at the problem. We saw much more than if we just took that bus to Puente del Inka.

Aconcaqua National Park isn’t like a National Park that you might expect. There are no gates to the park, facilities in the park or for that matter even roads in the park. To climb Aconcaqua, there is a cross on the side of the road and a well marked trail that leads to the ranger station. The closest city to this trail is Puente del Inka. About a mile away. The town is small, maybe a quarter mile long, primarily on one side of the road. The barracks for the Argentine Natinal Guard are on the other side. There is one decent hostel in the town. It’s called Hosteria Puente del Inka. We ate there during our tour. The food isn’t bad considering you are miles away from civilization. There are no stores for supplies here. There are many street vendors selling ponchos and knick knacks. There is a cemetary close by for the climbers who have died on the mountain. There are some fields also with mules penned into corrals. These are used to provide supplies to climbers. The park isn’t open until November 15^th. I’m not sure what this means since I could have walked 1 mile from Puente del Inka to the cross to walk to base camp. After November 15^th, there is a $20 trekking fee and much higher to climb.

Here we are in front of Aconcaqua

On Wednesday we got on a bus and 21 hours later arrived in Bariloche.  We took a taxi to our hotel.   The taxi driver didn’t have change nor did the hotel.  I did manage to procure change and pay the driver.  No easy button in Argentina.  Bariloche is a ski town in the Andes along a beautiful lake,  It reminds us of Lake Tahoe but I must confess that Bariloche is better.  It has a German flair to it.   The weather is a little chilly. This place is great if you love chocolate, wine, skiing, sailing and the great outdoors.  There are many chocolate shops on the main street and free samples are given out.  We need to leave soon before we sample too much!   Here’s a picture of us with our new friends from Bariloche, Duke and Baby Duke.

We’re heading to El Bolson soon.  Fortunately, it is only 2 hours away.  We plan to work our way to El Calafate to view the glaciers and then start working our way north in Chile.   Keep checking in to see where we are.  It’s been difficult trying to post lately since we haven’t had access to the internet although the hotels we stayed in at Mendoza advertised such.  There is no easy button but we are still having fun.