Up, up, up and Closer to the Border

When camping I am usually woken up by the sun. But with the cloudy sky it was not until my alarm rang at 7am that I opened my eyes. It was the first cold morning for me in a while and clouds were hangig deep in the mountains, hiding the morning sky.

After having packed away my camp I carried on cycling the 20 km to Uspallata to get some breakfast and a couple of cups on coffee (....one alone would not have cut it today 😴).

During the breakfast break I took care of reserving my ticket to go on a day hike in the Aconcagua Provincial park the next day, which is en route and close to the Chilean border. Paying for it was not that straight forward and required to find a pago-facil shop to pay for it in cash and then bringbthe receipt together with the ticket to the park the next day. Not quite sure why it's done this way, but it seems like a lot of stuff is handled via pago facil in Argentina, and luckily there are pago facil counters almost everywhere.

The goal for today's ride was the only refugio in a little settlement next to the Puente del Inca and 3 km before the provincial park.

While the road had been very busy on the way to Uspallata in the morning, it was fine for most of the rest of the day, with only little lorry traffic.
The street meandered through the mountains, slowly taking me up to the puente del Inca at 2700 meters, but when I arrived at the village the refugio was abandoned...even though there was a paper saying "be right back" hanging in the window, the owner was nowhere to be found 🤷‍♀️

Instead I got adoped by Javier, a rasta guy who lives in the town's old train station, which for many years was a hospedaje too, but is now mainly a shop for touristy things.

We spent 2 hours waiting for the refugio owner to show up, sharing Mate and chit-chatting. But he newer returned...

Since it was too windy to pitch my tent outside, Javier offered me to stay in one of the rooms of the old trainstation instead, which I happily accepted. After he came back from his work at the Argentinian Aduana down the road
we shared some dinner that he had brought home and I was introduced to another Argentinian speciality - Fernet Branca with Coca Cola - which tasted surprisingly good 😋. All in all this was a great example of Argentinian hospitality once again 😊
Then it was time to head off to get a good night's sleep in preparation for tomorrow's hike in the Aconcagua Provincial Park.

🚴‍♀️ Distance cycled: 90 km
☕️ Coffees had: 2
☕️ 🤞 Coffees I wish I had: 5
🏔 Total ascent: 1500 m
🍸 Fernet Branca with Coke: 1
🧍‍♂️People met in Village: 1Read more