Mendoza, Argentina

After deciding that I really liked hiking around in the mountains, I went to Mendoza, Argentina for my final week of traveling. It´s about 7 hours east of Santiago and has a lot to offer. It´s the main wine region, and has a wonderful park to head up to. I got in Monday evening at Hostel Lao and talked with some folks to see what they have been up do. I gathered that a lot of people do some sort of wine tour so I decided to add some things I like to do and make it a day. I like to bike, enjoy beautiful scenery, meet new people, and sample fine wines.
The view of one of the vineyards.
The wine cellar at Altavista.

Tuesday was spent biking around to vineyards and sampling incredible wines. Then Wednesday I took off at 6:00am to get up to Parque Acongaua. It´s more or less a four hour bus ride.
Enjoying the scenary up in the mountains.

But once I got up there it was wonderful. I was walking around in the valley all by myself for half a day. I got some great views of Mt. Acongaua, the highest peak outside of the Himalayas. Mt. Acongaua´s peak rises 22841 feet into the Argentinian sky. Also, I got a chance to see Puente del Inca, which is a natural bridge which was used by the Incan indians to cross the river.
Puente del Inca

I´m glad I got to see it after hiking all day, because it´s really only a 10 minute trip.
The central plaza in Mendoza in the late afternoon.

I got back to Santiago Friday morning, and have been hanging out with friends since then. Today, Sunday, we had a going away lunch and tomorrow I´m going to take care of some things and get to the airport in the afternoon for my flight back to Milwaukee.