Days 175 to 177: Santiago, CHL to Mendoza, ARG

Day 175: Santiago, CHL to Las Cuevas, ARG (160 km)

From Santiago, we had decided that we would cross into Argentina next, and then comeback into Chile further south. Our plan that day was to make it to the city of Mendoza, but things didn't go as planned at all. The first 120 km of the day were uneventful, but once we got close the the border, there was a surprise waiting for us. The road into Argentina was closed until 8 PM for construction!! It was 1 PM when we got to the road block, so we had 7 hours to kill... blah. We had no choice but wait it out. We chatted with a few people, including a group of super friendly Brazilian bikers on a 3 week tour in Chile and Argentina.

In the line up:

The Brazilians and us:

Mihai attempted to repair his defective jobber heated vest, but run out of patience after 15 minutes and gave up. He'll have to fix it soon, though, as it will get colder as we move further south.

The road finally opened at 8 pm, and we started ascending in the mountains. We reached 3500 m about 20 minutes later, and it got COLD and windy. We still had to go through customs, so we had moved all the way to the front of the line up, right before the road opened. Our plan was to get there before everyone else. Well, we ended up getting shafted, as we had to stop to purchase mandatory liability insurance, while most of the vehicles in the line up passed us and got to the customs before us. As a result, we wasted another 3 hours in the line up. We were outside, and pretty miserable because of the cold wind. I had to leave my bike running, in order to have the heated vest on, and I was still cold.

It was around around midnight when we finally got our paperwork done. Another 20 km, and we found a skiing station with a few hotels, but all of them closed (off season...). Shit. It was another 160 km to Mendoza from there, and we were too cold and tired to continue on. That's where I noticed the four motorcycles of the Brazilian group we had met earlier that day. They were parked in front of one of the closed hotels. The door was open, so we went inside. We figured that if the Brazilians got a room, we should be able to do so as well. Well, there was no one at the reception at first, so Mihai went wandering around. He ended up finding the Brazilians, who invited us to stay with them, as they had 2 extra beds in one of their rooms.

It turned out that the hotel was indeed closed, but somehow they had met the owners of two apartments in there, and these people agreed to rent them for the night. They also brought them some food (burgers and pizza) from I dunno where, as there was no open restaurants around. The Brazilians shared their supper with us, and around 1:30 AM we all went to sleep. It had been a long and tiring day, even though we haven't done much riding.

Day 176: Las Cuevas, ARG to Mendoza, ARG

We parted ways with our Brazilian friends in the morning, and drove back for a few kilometers towards the border, as apparently there was a good sport to take pictures from. We took a dirt road, and 20 minutes later, we indeed made it to a pretty scenic spot.

This was the first time I have encountered snow since the winter of 2011-12. I have not missed it at all.

We then took off towards Mendoza. After a while, the landscape changed and it got much warmer.

We ran into this strange religious sanctuary. People left there hundreds of plastic bottles filled with water. I need to find out what's the story behind it.

Later, it once again got cold and we caught some rain. Pretty shitty weather :/ We made it into Mendoza around 3 PM, and began the usual search for accommodation. We settled for a dorm in a youth hotel, for 10$ each. 

We didn't have any local currency, so the next mission was to get some money. We wanted to find a place where we could change our US dollars at the black market rate. Why? The black market rate for 1 USD is between 7.5 to 8 Pesos, whereas the official rate (in banks and change offices) is about 5.2 Pesos. We asked a guy at the hostel, and he told us to go to a change office, and that there would be ''black market'' money changers outside of the building.

Indeed, we got there, and immediately spotted one of the guys. He brought us to an office near by, and we changed out money. Easy peazy. The only downside is that Mihai got a better rate than I did (8 to  1 vs. 7.5:1 for me), as he had 100 USD bills and I had 20's.

Why such a difference in the official and black market rate? Argentinians can only purchase a limited amount of US dollars in their country, so if they want a larger amount, they need to buy from them from the black market.

Day 177: Mendoza, ARG

We spent a day walking around Mendoza, sightseeing and shopping for a chain and sprockets for Mihai's bike. 

Mendoza is a very chill town. Nothing spectacular (I only took a few pictures), but there is a nice vibe to it. It's clean, there's a lot of trees and parks, and many restaurants and bars in the part of town where we stayed. I definitely enjoyed this city.