This Saturday I am going to rent a bike and tour wineries and am looking forward to this event. I believe one could do this any day of the week.
I was in the big grocery store (like a Wal Mart, but thanks goodness that beast is not here, yet) the other day and I noticed you can buy a motorcycle for roughly 550 pesos. That is like 125 US dollars. I could buy a motorcyle that looks like an old classic Indian, the only problem with all of this, is gas is over 4.00/gal. and getting a license, insurance, regeristration and a title is what costs so much and very time consuming. One other small hurdle is that I have only driven a motorcycle once and that was Jason Bradner´s YZ 80 back in high school around his yard. The bike I am looking at is a 250cc Patagonia Eagle, which is a pretty sharp looking bike.
The other thing I really want to do while in the Mendoza area is climb Mt. (cerro) Aconcagua, which translates ´roof of the Andes´ or ´stone setinel´. It is the highest peak in the western hemisphere, which is also the highest peak outside of the Himalayas. It is around 23,536 feet tall. It is considered one of the seven summits to climb on seven different continents. Of the seven it is the highest outside of Mt Everest. I have already climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (the highest on the African continent), which is 19,340 feet above sea level. The only problem with this is it costs from 4-5,000 US dollars to go with a group or if I can find an unguided group it would cost a lot less, but takes up to 15 days or more to do cause of access to the mountain and Kilimanjaro only took four days up and two days down cause of easier access. I could afford it, but that would mean ending my trip early and not coming home with much dinero. I never plan on doing Mt. Everest cause it can cost from 60,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars and frankly I have nothing to prove.
Everest use to be a spiritual pilgrimage for the climber who did it because of the grueling physical, mental, emotional challenges this feat causes, but now sherpas carry rich arrogant people practically to the top. It use to be transformational experience, but now the rich go into the experience an a--hole and come back still an arrogant pig. That is unfortunate! In 1985 a climbing group found an Inca mummy on the South Face at 5300km up proving once to be an ancient pre-Columbian funerary site. The Andes are really hard to access. There is a highway that goes upfrom Mendoza through and over the Andes to the capital of of Chile, Santiago. Elevation sickness or Altitude sickness is a serious thing that can kill one due to lower oxygen in the air. There are several ways up the mountain. One is a technical route which one needs ropes, crampons, ice axes and the other route is not technical.
Altitude can affect anyone no matter on their physical shape or endurance. In fact, when climbing Kilimajaro from the Machame route, one starts at 3,000ft then goes up to10,000 then up to 12,500. That next day, day three the day we acclimated, we started at 12,500 that day and we went up 2,000 feet, then back down 1800, so only went up 200 ft allowing our minds and bodies to adapt. My head felt like it was in a vice and someone else was cranking away at it. It made me stumble around and fall. I went to bed early that night and told myself I had nothing to prove and would give up if I did not feel better the next day. Later I woke up for dinner and still did not feel good. Normally, I have a huge appetite and ate barely a third of my meal. Luckily, the next day I felt great and continued up to base camp at 15,000ft. Then we began climbing at 11 p.m that same night and arrived at the summit at sunrise and again my head starting hurting and I stumbled and fell multiple times coming down. Luckily, one would have to hurl themselves off the mountain to get hurt. It is not steep or technical just high.
Yesterday, I walked around in town and walked out to the largest city park in all of Argentina called Pargue de General San Martin. Huge park with giant Sycamores lining the streets, with Palm Trees, century plants (which is a giant cactus that blooms every so many decades shooting a shoot up 20 feet in the sky and blooming a flower, which is an agave plant that tequila comes from). Also saw prickly pear plants, tons of flowers in rose gardens and carnation bushes in bloom.
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