Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands)

This is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno. It has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site since 1999.

Our jitney bus picked us up at 7 AM from the Hostel.

Right on time, this mini bus drove us for 160 km to the cave system. Ms. Dingbat was not with us, we had no guide while on this small bus. Our driver spoke some English but was not an official tour guide.
Once we arrived at our destination, at this National Monument, after we paid our admission of 100 pesos, we were given the worst ever English speaking guide. OK, I understand that this is Argentina, but remember we paid for an English guide to get the maximum out of our visit. We travelled half the world to see this site and drove via bus over bumpy roads, with stinky, leaking bathrooms, felt like we got tortured and were beaten up, slept in a dump of a hostel and now this? This is not funny. Maybe I am off but I expected the National Park System of Argentina to have competent, English speaking guides. I did not expect Spanglish speaking people. The whole visit was spoiled when I stood there listening to all this Spanish I could not understand. Complicated Spanish with dates and Paleolithic expressions is not in my vocabulary, I hardly get by in common use Spanish. It is a shame, I could not ask anybody, could not get more details from anybody. Nobody at the Ranger Station in the middle of nowhere spoke passable English. Yet, they did collect my fees and I did pay for an English tour.

Besides all of this, Ms. Dingbat was no longer with us, she just disappeared. She abandoned us as her way of managing our tour. Never mind what we agreed on; never mind what our itinerary was or what was spelled out to us at the beginning of the trip. Never mind what our planning was, never mind what we expected, paid for and were promised. We were left stranded at the Cave of the Hands with a jitney driver who spoke English haltingly and had no clue as to our plans. All he knew was to meet a bus after the tour of the Cave system and drop us off at a different bus that would take us to Chaltén. In my mind the question popped up, how do we get to Calafate, even to Chaltén after this tour? So concentrating on the cave tour was a bit difficult.

Here is what I do know about the cave of the hands.

The site we visited gets its name for the hand paintings, made by the indigenous inhabitants (possibly forefathers of the Tehuelches) some 9,000 years ago. The composition of the several inks is mineral, and thus cannot be carbon dated, so the age of the paintings has been calculated from the remains of the bone pipes used for spraying the paint on the wall blocked by the hand.

The caves lie along the Valley of the Pinturas River, in an isolated spot in the Patagonian landscape.

The main cave measures 24 m (79 ft) in depth, with an entrance 15 m (49 ft) wide, and it is initially 10 m (33 ft) high. The ground inside the cave has an upward slope;

inside the cave the height is reduced to no more than 2 m (7 ft).
The images of hands are often negative (stencilled). (See the red hand)

Besides these, there are also depictions of human beings, guanacos, rheas, felines and other animals,

as well as geometric shapes, zigzag patterns, representations of the sun, and hunting scenes.

Similar paintings, though in smaller numbers, can be found in nearby caves. There are also red dots on the ceilings, probably made by submerging their hunting bolas in ink, and then throwing them up. The colours of the paintings vary from red (made from hematite) to white, black or yellow. The negative hand impressions are calculated to be dated around 550 BC, the positive impressions from 180 BC, and the hunting drawings to be older than 10,000 years.
Most of the hands are left hands, which suggests that painters held the spraying pipe with their dexterous hand.
I saw a few hands with 6 digits,

a fluke of nature? A mistake? I could not ask! (See the center red hand) (Carol discovered later that this was a genetic abnormality.) Why were those hands not discovered earlier? Are there more caves nearby? Did they find graves, did someone find living quarters near by since this is obviously a ceremonial spot?
I had tons of questions! Yet, I might as well have spoken Chinese to our guide. There was nobody who spoke my language. The guide we had might even have known more but was not really interested in speaking English. She rattled on in Spanish in a rehearsed way. Too bad, I liked this old spot on Earth!

On the Road to Calafate

We booked a special trip to visit the ‘Cueva des las Manos’ Caves. Those caves are on the way to Calafate. We committed ourselves to two days on a bus again, with a stop overnight along the way and a visit the second morning to see the Cave of the Hands (Cueva des las Manos).

then arriving in Calafate the second night. The girl at the Hostel Los Tronchos did all the paper work for us. I was a bit concerned since she used a bus line that does not start from the Bus Terminal but from someplace on a side street in town. We scouted out the bus stop yesterday and yes, it seemed to be legit and known to the locals.

The first day on the bus was purely bus riding. As I said before, up at 5:30AM, a taxi at 6:00AM and then waiting in the rain for the bus to show up at 6:30 AM. I am still concerned since this was a stop not at the Bus Terminal but in front of a store in the middle of downtown Bariloche. So we stood around, wondering if the bus would show up. There was no sign or any other indication that this was a bus stop. We found an overhang to shelter us from the downpour. Another couple stood nearby and we were the only people around this early in the day. He came over to verify that he was in the right place; he seemed to be concerned, too. I told this fellow that I was told this was the spot. I guess we are correct! How do I know for sure? We were standing in the middle of a block, someplace in Bariloche, waiting for a bus, along with this South African couple. All of us were just hoping this is the place!

Sure enough, after some 20 minutes and a bit late, an older bus, worn down from traveling on the unforgiving Route 40 showed up. It had the right name on it, so it must be the right bus. We asked if this bus goes to Calafate and yes, we were told to get on the bus. We stowed our bags in the hold and off we went on a new adventure. Still not too sure about our destination, we asked the guide on the bus who barely spoke English, if this bus goes to Calafate. She affirmed that this was our bus; we were on our way to Calafate. Phew, what a relief! The bus was not crowded; there were plenty of seats available.

The occupants were mostly young people in their 20s, traveling with backpacks, not suitcases. Our guide, a young woman, conversed in Spanish, speaking on a loud microphone, giving all of us instructions about the trip. At one point she was leaning against the bus door when suddenly she fell out of the bus. Luckily we were stopped at a traffic light or for some other reason and she just fell out not hurting herself much. Her English was beyond my comprehension, I understood nothing she had to say. I am not sure why we had her along, but she was there, none-the-less. She was not the guide for the Caves.

Our trip that day ended at 7.30 PM in the town of Perito Moreno. The last few hours were no longer on tarmac but on gravel.

We had some short stops along the way for smoke breaks for people who smoked or bathroom breaks and a lunch stop.

There was a small toilet at the end of the bus but the constant shaking of the bus made this bus bathroom an iffy affair. After some hours it even started to stink from the constant shaking of its contents.

We stopped for the first night at the smallish town of Perito Moreno. A desolate place, brought back to life with the discovery of the nearby Cave of Hands in 1999. The town is still very much asleep.

The hotel picked for us on this excursion in Perito Moreno was 3rd class. It had a restaurant attached but we opted to find a local place a bit more elegant for our dinner that night. There were better hotels in town, but our tour just preferred the local flavor, incl. cigarette stink, over a better place.

The steel bathroom door in our room did not close, the shower was so dirty Carol did not even take a shower; she said she would be dirtier getting out then walking in. This hotel was an old place from the past, before the tourists made Perito Moreno a bus stop on the way to Calafate.

Calafate??? No, we are not going to Calafate, our 'tour guide' said!

What do you mean; we are not going to Calafate?

Well, we are going to El Chaltén, close to Calafate, but we are not really going to Calafate!

How close to Calafate do you go?

Well, 3 or 4 hours away by bus from Chaltén!

I am puzzled! All along the way I thought we are going to Calafate, I even told our guide, I will call her ‘Dingbat’ from now on, about our Hostel reservations in Calafate and now this Dingbat tells me the bus is not going to our chosen destination! What is going on?

Oh, I am fuming! In addition Dingbat tells us that part of the tour package is a night in a Hostel in the next town of Chaltén. She tells us a hostel just for the night, with breakfast is included in our package. And after that, our tour ends. Showing her the brochure we had did not help.
I believe someone changed our schedule to fit their needs. Someone took it upon themselves to omit the drive of the bus from Chaltén to Calafate since none of the other passengers were going to Calafate. All of the other passengers were mountain climbing in Chaltén, we were the only people going on to Calafate; the tour management ended our tour in Perito Moreno and dumped us, passed us on to the jitney driver and washed their hands of us. Yes, we will see the cave of the hands tomorrow morning after we wake up in Perito Moreno. A small bus will take us to the Cave. Our whole itinerary is being changed right then and there. Confusing? You bet!
What to do?

We have reservation in Calafate for late arrival tomorrow. We booked and prepaid the Hostel reservations in Calafate by credit card through Supernova, our travel agent in BA. This is a Holiday weekend, we cannot contact our Travel Agent in BA and nobody is working on this long Bank Holiday. And now you, Ms Dingbat, are telling us we are not arriving in Calafate tomorrow? Are you kidding us? I am livid. Planning is everything. We trusted the travel agent at the Hostel, we trusted the Bus line when we stepped on the bus and we even trusted Ms, Dingbat, even though she fell out the bus door. I should have known better right there and then.
So a lot of confusion, a lot of how could this have happened. But we need to keep our cool, those things happen on a trip, confusion can be really bad, we can work this out.

First things first! We are going to the Cave of Hands tomorrow morning starting at 7AM. We have a pick up at the hotel. We need to buy breakfast because it is not included in the package tour and then......we are off to Chaltén. Yes, we are still on the way to Calafate but with a huge detour and an unexpected stay over in Chaltén. But let's talk about the Cueva de los Manos next. I explain to you after that how Ms. Dingbat found a way out of this mess and how it happened.

The Town of Bariloche

The hostel we were booked in, Hostel Los Troncos, was fairly new and a good place to stay, even though the shower sprayed water over the toilet. There was no way to avoid it, I tried every way possible but the bathroom was just too small. It was a feat just to use the towel to dry off or even to get into the bathroom to use the facilities. This new place; built in 2007, had a bad layout for the rooms we were in. The Wi-Fi was good however and we did the needed updates on our emails. Breakfast was included in the price of the room and the breakfast room downstairs was set up well for this purpose. The surprise at breakfast was fresh baked medialunas (croissants) every day. Two of those delicious croissants for each person, yummy!

The rooms were very small, just large enough for a bed with no room to even put a suitcase and we are travelling with two big suitcases. The first two nights we received a room without any outside light, the window in this room opened up to an air shaft. After two nights we switched and had a view of the mpountains yet this room was closer to the street noise and also overlooking a parking lot. The location of the hostel, on the main street and about 5 blocks off the main square, made up for those short-comings. Yet it was a noisy Hostel, new, nice looking, but poorly laid out. This place could serve as a metaphor of Bariloche.

Bariloche is nice looking but…

We walked the town, looking for our pick-up spot for our early bus departure the next morning to Calafate. We had booked a bus trip to Calafate with the hostess of the Hostel Los Troncos, she spoke halting English but I thought we did OK and she did the best she could. We had tested her skills the previous day with a booking she made for us, a tour of the Black Glacier. Everything on the Glacier tour ran as she had promised. Let's see how the trip to El Calafate will work.

The town of Bariloche itself is a fast growing, busy, not so small town. The tourist explosion for the National Parks in Argentina has affected Bariloche, too. I had the feeling, though, that the town grew too quickly, without much thought about the details and without a good Master Plan. The newly built houses seem like copies of Swiss chalets.

This idea of a Swiss looking town just does not fit in Argentina. While the area might be greener than the surrounding desert-looking areas, it is not Switzerland. None-the-less, the idea seems to be stuck in the heads of the folks around here that Bariloche is somehow Swiss. Names like Edelweiss, Chamonix, Zitterthal, etc. are visible on buildings. Even Fondue is touted in a restaurant, a knock off of food from Europe that does not really fit here. Argentina is Argentina. It seems preposterous to copy something when Argentineans have so much of their own culture. These 'imitation' chalets just do not fit in. I am jaded, I know it. I would love to have seen more Gaucho places, more indigenous history, more of the real Argentina with Tango and culture of Argentina, and less of a bad copy of Switzerland.

When a town grows as quickly as Bariloche did, what do you do? How do you get a city plan together, how do you handle the infra structure, the water, electric, sanitation issues? What are you proud off? What is your handle? Where are your roots? All those questions are just floating in space and were not addressed when Bariloche exploded from a small town to the city it is now. Some people had this 'Swiss' idea and went with it but it seems wrong.

Around the town square Bariloche built new, solid stone buildings which house the Municipal offices. These building are just a few years old. Everything seems new but it does not seem organized, logical, or natural. The planning of the town seems rushed. The execution of the buildings, albeit very solidly built, shows short comings that add up. Bariloche is a city now, still growing due to the nearby National Park and the influx of tourists which create a gold rush of some sorts.

The town plaza, just built too, sports an already defaced, monument of someone sitting on a horse. Did anybody not see who spray- painted the monument, carved the few wooden benches and caused the other vandalisms? Did anybody care? Did the police not see who did this damage? Did they not care? I watched idle police officers standing around looking bored.

An empty, green plastic hut was set up for something right next to the defaced rider’s statue. It looked shabby and ripped. The sidewalks on this new plaza were popping up already after being poorly installed. Nobody seemed to mind the lose paving stones and the curbs worn down already and the general damages or the unfinished sections of concrete work.

Local teens were roller boarding, or riding their bikes in dangerous ways amid strolling tourists. I counted 4 separate photographers talking pictures of tourists using a live St. Bernard dog with a small St. Bernard puppy as a cute thing next to it on this plaza.

The groomed dogs carried small barrels on their necks, just like in the pictures of the Swiss dogs on the St. Bernard Mountains in Switzerland. It seemed so wrong.

Workers were setting up an elaborate stage for the weekend performance of? We never found out. There was no sign to let the tourists read what was going to come, what was going to happen.

This plaza was built not that long ago, yet it seems they forgot the daily maintenance schedule of the place. Trash was piled up.The center of town clearly shows the ‘tourist fever’ rush. The growth rate was just too fast and not well thought through.

Still, the National Park that started it all, the Glaciers, Mt Tronadór and the hiking in the woods are worth a visit. I wish Bariloche well. I hope this town, Bariloche, can handle its growth and can find its own identity.

I hope Bariloche can get rid of the rough edges it seems to have, find the tranquility and the elegance tourists crave. I hope Bariloche can find her own identity based on what the area is. Bariloche, bring back some of the indigenous ways, live simply off the land. Teach us space-age people the simpler life. Bariloche go back to nature; do not copy what others did in Geneva or in the Emmenthal. Show us visitors that this is truly a unique place to visit. Because the area is a one of a kind place and deserves better.

A good place to eat in Bariloche is the Spanish Restaurant “Breogn Taberna Gallega” on Av. San Martin 405. I had a delicious paella and the local trout was wonderful too.

Bariloche has fantastic trout fishing and could be a Mecca for people that love to fish for this delicacy.

We tried the much advertised 'Tony' Parrilla across the street from the Hostel but were disappointed and I will never go back to this place. We asked Tony if we could bring our own wine and we were told, yes! Then we were charged 60 Pesos, (US$ 15.00) for the use of his wine glasses. He never even blinked when he presented us his invoice. In fact the use of his wine glasses on the invoice was added in red ink to rub our noses in it. Tony, shame on you! Your place is a rip off! Your steak was way too salty and the meat tough besides. There is nothing great about Tony’s Parrilla.

Good bye Bariloche! We are off to Calafate, again along famous Route 40, driving ever deeper South.

Our bus leaves tomorrow morning at 6.45 AM, we need to get a taxi at 6 AM. Getting a taxi this early is not easy since it is really the middle of the night for Argentineans who party until 5 AM without a problem. We know about that because our room faced the street and the noise came right into the room even with the windows locked. Make sure you get a room facing toward the back if you visit this Hostel.

Monte Tronadór

Our tour, booked at the hostel desk when we arrived yesterday, started at 9 AM. Gabriella was our tour guide and a pleasant woman with very clear English of about 30 something.

After a few more stops, picking up more customers, our bus went south on Route 40 for about 30 minutes and then took a gravel road on the right with just a small sign indicating that this road was, in fact, a full-fledged road, leading to Chile even, if one chose to go that way.
We took this road to visit Mte. Tronadór, an extinct volcano, situated on the border of Chile.

Half the mountain is in Chile, the other half in Argentina. With a height of 3,500 meters, this colossal Mte. Tronadór is visible from afar. Snow peaked; it stands solemnly as the highest peak in this National Park.
The gravel road we were on followed a river more or less.

The source of this rapidly flowing river is a glacier sitting on the top and side of Mte. Tronadór and is our target for today’s excursion. A few miles further along the curvy, narrow road, we paid our admission of 50 pesos and officially entered the huge environmental National Park, named Nahuel Huapi.
This gravel road is narrow, dusty and very bumpy.

On and on we went, for almost 2 hours, covering 900 curves in 50 km., and the driver was busy keeping the bus moving. We were gaining elevation since our start was at 750 meters and our destination lies at 1150 meters. Left and right along the narrow drive, strange trees greeted us. Beyond the nearby trees, an expanse clearly showed that the valley was carved by a glacier

or that the raging river helped sculpt the area. The look was primordial, lonely and wild but beautiful. We stopped a few times for picture opportunities, to stretch our legs but kept moving on and on. Other buses, not too many though, were on the same road. The dust created by their passing us or us passing them left a cloud, so we kept our distance and only encountered a few private cars along the way. No motorcycles, I would say that it is nutty to ride on this stretch of the world on a bike. The surface is rough, full of soft gravel and the corners are steep and sharp.
At one of the stops, where a platform had even been constructed, was a view of a heart-shaped island in the middle of an emerald lake.

The shape was not really visible from this side of the lake but I took a picture of the postcard Gabriella showed all of us.
Trees growing along the side of the road had names and characteristics I never had heard about. One such tree, Coigüe or Cohoui, grows nodes around some branches and from those nodes a fungi (Llao Llao) blooms once a year. Those fungi ‘bloom’ around October and are edible and sweet. The natives, the Huapi, inhabitants of the area for eons, ate them raw and treated them as a delicacy. Even today, those mushroom-looking blooms are coveted and are precious morsels if found. We saw one such tree with nodes hanging off its branches but could not take a picture in the moving, shaking bus.
Sometime after we passed the Ranger Station, we come to a large expanse, a scenic area with some platforms built along the river Manso.

This was as close as we could get to the Glaciar Negro (the Black Glacier) or the Glaciar Del Manso which feeds the Black Glacier. Naturally everybody clicked away with their cameras to get a good picture but the view was really delightful.

Huge chunks had broken off the black river of ice and were floating in the milky, light coffee colored waters below the edge of the glacier. This is the source of the Rio Manso we have been following; or part of the source because above this point, high up on the mountain of Mte. Tronadór, another all white glacier showed its edge to us.

The glacier, Glaciar Del Manso, looked tiny from our point of view but we were at the wrong angle. Gabriella pointed out that the little white we saw was in fact 100 meters deep of pure ice, way above the stone precipice. Waterfalls dotted the stone wall, wet areas discolored the stones. A huge space was visible between the upper, white Glacier and the lower, Black Glacier. Chunks of ice and water falling off the upper white glacier into the lower area mixed with the dirt, ash and minerals from the moraine at the glacier’s edge.

The whole mix became almost black in color as it refroze and formed the lower, Black Glacier. This is a picture of erosion at its finest.
We experienced a new outlook on these ever-changing conditions and natural phenomena. We had a small bus load of people; there were maybe 2 or 3 other buses in the small parking lot, and the strangest thing happened. We all exited the bus talking, chatting and in general having a good time. We all took pictures. We all walked down to the edge of the river and saw the floating ice blocks. And then..... one by one, everyone stopped talking; even the children on the tour. Within a few moments everyone just became quiet; no one spoke, moved or made any noise. Believe me, this is a very unusual experience in Argentina to hear total quiet, to experience nobody talking. The moment was special, the feeling awe inspiring. Everybody, even children, experienced this feeling. It lasted quite some time, too. Only the sudden thunder from way above near the edge of the white Glacier made everybody look in the same direction.

We could clearly see an avalanche as a piece of the ice broke off and fell down to the lower section of the Black Glacier. A new water fall formed after the fall of the ice but then stopped. Quiet returned. We witnessed Nature giving us a wonderful experience, a show primitive yet exquisite. One by one, still in awe, we re-climbed the stairs back to our bus, having had an experience worth the admission to the park.
Just about 10 km further down the road, at the foot of Mte. Tronadór the tour ended.

We had time to reflect on what we experienced, time to grab a lunch, time to take a walk along another smaller river, rushing past us to meet the Rio Manso. The area was full of rocks, full of boulders, full of exposed tree roots, full of fallen trees, cascading waters, sunshine that heated up those rocks and full of cool shadows, perfect for a picnic.

The walking path had some difficult stretches until it came to a spot where it could only be continued with special equipment and foot wear. Some young people tried to climb but not for long before it became clear that even they needed to plan ahead to conquer this primitive world. The National Park, Nahuel Huapi, allows hikers to use the area for exploration and even continue on to Chile from here. I wish them good luck, I can see doing it at 25 years old, but I learned a few things along my way, one is not to push too hard.
Our way back on the bus took a good 2 hours, along the same narrow, gravel road but without stopping this time. We drove the same part of Route 40, this time going north, dropping people off at their respective hotels. The bus driver was really good on the gravel, sometime sliding around the corner, wheels spinning in the gravel and leaving a huge dust cloud behind the vehicle. I could tell he loved it, playing Latin Rock on his CD to the delight of the girls behind us who sang along, clapping and laughing, having a party. Ah, to have hormones (HAH!) and stamina like that again.
For me it was a more surreal outing. I laughed, too, and sang but more quietly and within myself. It was a new experience for me to visit a glacier that close, to see Mother Nature share her ways and to be part of this Universe. I loved the quiet, the no sound but what Nature had to offer. My delight was the sunshine creating shadows; the wind rustling the leaves of trees. The sound of the water moving the pebbles and rocks was my music.

On the road to San Carlos de Bariloche (famous Route 40)

The distances are great in Argentina. Another 17 hours on a bus, going due south from Mendoza to Bariloche. Long flights seem better; at least I don’t get jostled around so much in my seat when I fly. We had a few stops along the way to Bariloche to pick up other passengers.
Just after we left Mendoza at 9.00 PM on Sunday it rained quite a bit and yes, the roof of the bus leaked right over my seat. I had to use a blanket to hold the water off of me. It was a good, strong shower and luckily did not last too long. The rain wet the floor and all seats were taken so I could not switch seats. The crew had no answer to my predicament.
We stopped about 6 times for military controls along the way but nobody came into the bus to check out the passengers like they did on the bus to Iguazú falls. We were served dinner at 10 PM, breakfast at 7 AM and lunch at 1 PM on this trip. The food is similar to airline food with an Argentinean flavor. We had cookies and stale medialunas (croissants) for breakfast, for example). It was food to still one’s hunger, not to satify ones senses.
A speed alarm went off after one stop and could not be reset manually. Once the bus driver exceeds 90KM per hour, his speed limit, a red light comes on and a high pitched beeper sounds upstairs. The personnel tried to manually turn if off but it was stuck. So it beeped for a while, right above our seats, wailing at a high pitch that was actually painful for Carol. Luckily she had ear plugs handy. Only after the driver stopped the bus and restarted the engine did the buzzer reset itself and turn off.
The trip was butt numbing; my backside ached from sitting that long in a semi-reclining seat. I tried to sleep but fitting like a pretzel into the seat made it just a nap here and there. The landscape around us was the same flat landscape for miles and miles.

Most of the land was now desert, with just a few houses or small towns along the way. The land in between the towns was not farmed; I just saw scrubby bushes and a few grassy patches here and there. During the night no light shone and I saw only blackness.

I noticed that Poplar trees were planted wherever possible to break up the wind coming out of the west, off the high Andes that look like a black wall in the distance.
Route 40, the famous road we are now on, 5000 km of road from north to south, runs parallel to those expanses of monster volcanoes, most extinct but some still quite active. Near the town of Neuquén, the land started to change. This is the official gate city to Patagonia. From now on the Route 40 no longer runs straight but finds the easiest pass thru the foot hills of the mountains but always bearing south. It must have been some work to put in this road through the western part of Argentina. The terrain is unforgiving, the desert, hot and dry and very windy, the mountains twisty and undulating, seemingly forever.
We passed spots of dead poplar trees and gray,

dust covered bushes. The air looked like we were driving through a cloud yet it was ash from a spewing volcano nearby.

This Volcano, Puyehue, southwest of Bariloche, has been erupting continuously since last July. Westerly winds make the ashes drift far into the land and sometimes block out the sun.
In this wild area of Argentina, the road is just one lane in each direction. Two vehicles can just about pass each other, there is not always room to pull off the side of the road, and there are just a few guard rails in the most dangerous spots. Since I sat in the driver’s seat but on the upper deck I had the same view as the driver. Sometimes the going was very tight, the curves difficult to negotiate. I noticed the bus driver cutting corners on steep curves,

but I also noticed he never passed when there was the slightest chance of oncoming traffic. Some cars, old and dilapidated, were very slow and never did the bus driver pass unless he could really pass in a safe manner.

Head on collisions on route 40 are part of life. We passed one such accident and had to drive through the dirt on the side of the road to get past the accident scene.

It was difficult going in the soft sand next to the road for big trucks and buses. We were lucky we did not get stuck but the driver managed with a lot of wheel spinning to get back on the tarmac again.
Once we entered Patagonia, trees were more numerous and the bus now had to contend with curves upon curves. Once in a while we saw different trees, most of them I don’t know, but I recognized a few Monkey Puzzle trees.
I watched the road signs and still it said, 340 km. to Bariloche, then after some time 280 km. etc. We were getting closer. We crossed rivers, we passed blue/green lakes, and we saw in the west the 3000+ meter giant mountains looming with their white snow hats. On and on we drove until finally, at 2 pm we arrived at the Terminal de Omnibus in Bariloche. I am so glad we had Hostel reservation; I would not want to drive around in a taxi now, looking for accommodation after such a long trip. My body aches, my head is spinning, and I need sleep.

Mendoza

Leaving BA was now straight forward and we traveled at night again to make the bus ride more bearable. Our destination, Mendoza, is about 1100 KM west from BA and the over-night bus,

this time a real sleeper, where the seats reclined a full 180 degrees (Cama Suite) made the 14 hour trip seem shorter and much more comfortable.
The landscape along the way is nothing to write about. Flat expanses left and right where trees have been planted for centuries to keep the soil in place. Former grass lands are now stabilized by mostly poplar, birch or pine trees. Not that it is woodsy but the endless flat terrain is now broken by those tree plantings. Still the landscape is nothing but a huge flat expanse, the Pampas.
We arrived in Mendoza around 9 AM on Friday morning and without difficulty the taxi took us to our already reserved Hostel Damajuana about ten minutes away. But at check in ….
“We do not have a room!” she said.
I am still sleepy, not comprehending the lady.
We have a reservation! See our slip of paper from the Travel Agent?
“Sorry, we booked the room to someone else; we do not have a room available!”
Well, I woke up quickly, the monotony of the trip, the landscape, the lack of sleep evaporated. What do you mean you gave our room away to someone else? This is not funny! A few phone calls to the owner of the Hostel and checking their computer system revealed that indeed, a new employee of the hostel made a mistake and gave ‘our’ room away. What to do? With some extra phone calls made we were given a room in the Hostel’s sister operation, just two long blocks down the street.
The ‘new’ hostel, Ítaka, is a backpackers place.

Our new room does not have A/C and the day temp is around 32 C (94F). The room is cooled by an old fashioned, very noisy, standing fan. The exposure is west, so the sun beats on the room until it finally sets. No curtains to draw, just some shutters that are hard to operate. The bathroom is a joined affair down the hall. We are above the bar. The place is noisy with the energy of the young people from all over the world coming and going. Yet, what choice do we have? We took the room. The lack of sleep or not wanting to fight for anything else got the better of me. The floors of the place are all tiles, the walls are bare, and so the noise level is amplified. The personnel however treated us nicely and were very apologetic.
We stuffed our bags into the room and took a long walk to explore the town center of Mendoza. With a small city map as our guide, we walked to the main plaza and confirmed what we expected. Nice city! The city Plaza was filled with trees and little kids playing along its walks and blanket merchants, offering trinket jewelry nobody needs or even wants, from their blankets on the sidewalk. A small army of leaf cutting ants was our entertainment for awhile.

We walked for close to 4 hours and were tired so returned to the hostel for a siesta.
There is nothing to report from Mendoza, only that it is a city. Sure it has small drainage ditches, acéquias,

running along the roadsides since pre-Inca times but it is a busy city with buses, cars, bumpy sidewalks and noise and heat during the day. The earthquake in 1861 leveled the historic area; the ‘new’ Mendoza is just a city; planned in a checker board layout, more or less. It is the commercial capital of the region.
As an apology for ‘their’ freely admitted mistake, the Hostel owner gave us free lunches and dinners for the two days we were booked. A nice touch, yet those folks do not understand how ‘older’ people like their peace and quiet. Food is not the leading indicator of a ‘nice’ place. We would have much preferred the original place, especially since our first ‘free’ food event was a BBQ that evening in the court yard of the hostel Damajuana, our original hostel. Argentina eats late. So the BBQ was scheduled to begin at 10 PM and actually started at 10.30 PM or so, we are on Argentina time, remember that. In the court yard of the Hostel Damajuana, next to their small pool, a make-shift setting of assorted chairs and tables was set up. Using some long-staying clients as helpers, the Hostel put on a traditional Parrilla.

At our table we had a couple from Argentina, he was from Tierra del Fuego, she from Mendoza. A single Chinese man from Hong Kong but living in California, two women from Holland, a single woman from Oregon and a hitchhiker from Australia rounded out our group. The languages flowed back and forth, English being the most prevalent at the table but Spanish was tried and used, too.
The menu was meat.

Every kind known to Argentineans was on the grill and was served, one piece at the time. Even the infamous blood sausage was on the menu. The side dish was a ‘handmade’ salad. I said handmade because we saw the lady make the salad in a big tub, using her hands deftly to mix the ingredients. The drink was a local wine in a plastic pitcher. No label just a red local wine. The food was good, but it was not the food that made the evening memorable, it was the international atmosphere that we liked.
Carol and I were the oldest people at this affair by far. In fact the age difference was driven home to me after the BBQ when we left the backyard. We stepped out of the sheltered environs of the Hostel Damajuana just after midnight, tired and wanting to sleep, but the street had converted itself into a party street. I could not believe how many people were about, eating, drinking, talking and looking for a mate, etc. non-stop. For block after block, the street was full of young people having a good time.

As far as I could see in each direction, it was ‘party time’. Everywhere, music was playing from CD’s. It was almost a shock to see the happy mood and the joie de vivre all around us this late at night. Wow, where did all those people come from in just the 2 or so hours we were attending our BBQ? It was a giant party, all the restaurants, fairly empty on our way in at around 10PM were doing a humming business now at midnight. Money and drinks flowed continuously. Carol and I walked home surrounded just by young people. We did not see anybody over the age of ?40?
Mendoza is for the young, Mendoza is a party town; especially on a Friday night in the summer.
Even the advertised activities are for the young. I cannot see myself rappelling down cliffs or mountain climbing any longer. Adventure tours are offered in the mountains, daylong horseback rides stretching into weeks, if you want to do that, can be had.
Anyone want to raft on white water? Go Sky Diving?
I learned many years ago that my butt cannot take a day long ride in the saddle. I learned also that mountain climbing is very difficult; I got stuck on a wall once as a youngster trying to climb some rocks. I learned that white water rafting or kayaking is hard work. I do know my limits now.
We had booked a wine tour for Saturday afternoon and drifted along in the morning biding our time. I felt no interest in visiting more of the busy streets, just to look into shop windows. The weather, closer to 100 F, with no wind, did not help me to feel exuberant about daring to walk again. We zoned out in the backyard, listening to progressive music of 2012, with its repeating phrasing only a 20 year old can love.

I read a book on my kindle surrounded by young adults doing their mating dance in or near the small water hole they call a pool.

Some guys were cooking up a storm for lunch. I can see that to sunbathe is still in. Tattoos of any kind adorn the skin of the young adults. Smoking is still a big thing with the young in Argentina. I watched, read, and hugged the shade to stay cool.
Our tour began with the news that nobody spoke English. Great! Yes, of course we booked the wine tour in English but something along the way went wrong. So, perched among the folks in the bus, Carol and I listened to a descriptive tour, given by a jovial man with a beard, all in good Argentinean Spanish. I understood 20% of it, if that. Ok, at each actual visit to the wineries we had a guide that spoke Spanish-English but I felt we got a token tour in English even though we paid full price.
The first winery we visited, Baudron, was an antique affair,

set up to show us what it was like in 1930 or so, this part of the Winery no longer operates today. Today this place is visited by tour buses, one after the other and we were given some wines to taste that were supposedly rated as good, if not rated as outstanding. I am no connoisseur, I pretended to know what I am doing but to my taste buds the wines were not to my liking.

I never-the-less bought a 25 Peso bottle for later use that was a bit sweeter. We had this bottle with dinner at the Hostel that night and it was better than I anticipated.
The second stop on the tour was at an olive processing plant. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, pressed on location was their specialty. It was an education since I had never before seen how olive oil was made. Our guide was thorough, explaining in English the selection of perfect actual olives as the main factor for getting good olive oil.

After crushing the fruit, after stacking the pulp into presses with metal filters in between each layer, and using a hydraulic press, the fluids were pressed out of the pulp and then pumped into successive holding tanks.

I think there were a total of ten tanks in line. Since oil rises above the sediment, it swims on top of tank one and is then lifted off to be pumped into tank two, then from two to three, from three to four etc. after which, at the final tank teh, only pure oil remains, which is then bottled and sold as ‘Extra Virgin Olive Oil’.

I liked this tour, it added something new to my knowledge base, and I just wished it had been in better English. The girl tried but her accent was heavy and made it difficult to understand.
The last winery visit for the tour was Pasrai, an organic wine maker.

All the grapes were home grown and no sugars or yeasts were added. While most of their wine was aged in bottles, they did have a cave with oak barrels. We again had a tasting, and this time I passed on the wine altogether. Carol learned that the oak aged Malbec wine was much smoother than the bottle aged wine and she particularly enjoyed the Malbec which had been aged nine months.

My favorite wine is a Riesling, a white wine. I like Mosel’s Spätlese, a sweet wine. I like true Ports from Portugal as red wines. Call me eccentric, I like what I like. All the wines I tasted on this wine tour were vinegary tasting to my taste buds, bitter even. I passed, thank you.
Ok, Mendoza is a wine city. I am sure Argentina makes great wines. I just should not have taken any regular, tourist tour. I know too little about wines to be a good judge of wines. All around Mendoza are wineries, lots and lots of them.
Mendoza is for young people, for 20-somethings, for young and fit folks. I felt out of place in Mendoza. I have seen it, but I am moving on to Bariloche next. I am going South, again by bus, again at night.
See you in San Carlos de Bariloche!