| Mendoza to San Juan |
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| San Juan, 4 May 2005 Ola chicos y chicas, Most of you will have heard about the bad news by now but we are still alive and kicking! For those of you who do not know what has happened here it comes: Sunday the 24th of April we entered a restaurant to have a delicious parilla and bumped into a German couple that we had met on the boat trip between Puerto Natales and Puerto Montt. It was great to see them back and hear about their stories and tell what we had done so far! We had put our backpack next to our table and as we had parilla we had to get up from the table to get our food! There was always somebody at the table but we did not pay enough attention to our backpack and by the time we needed our dictionary our backpack was gone with the wind! The stupid thing is that normally I always carry my money belt around my waist but at that time I had put it in the backpack and forgot to take it out! Result, they did not only steal our camera but also the hard disc with our pictures, an MP-3 player and my small bag with my passport, credit cards, driver license and quite a lot of cash! I was so angry at myself that it took a few days to recover and get over it. And believe me when I think about it, I still get depressed!!!!!!!! That same night we wandered around the streets, hoping to find anything back but we did not! Until now the police did not find anything and I don't believe they will!!! I contacted the 'Embajada de Bélgica' in Buenos Aires to have a new passport and normally I will have a temporary one in a few days to travel in South America for 6 months. But as we also go to the States the 29th of June I also need a new electronic passport to get in!!!! Luckily I do not have to go to Buenos Aires for it! So now we are sleeping in a tent and having sober meals (bread and water)! ;-) No more great pictures from our adventures but we already bought a new small digital camera! Nothing fancy (because even the most simple digital camera costs here a lot of money compared to the States or Europe) but in this way we are able to make some pictures and if Joris is able to find the right program (and I'm sure he will) than maybe we will be able to sent you some more pictures! Our memory card is very small now so we can not take as many pictures as before but at least we have some pictures to remind us of what we have seen and done! Our hard disc is also stolen but luckily enough, Joris is a very smart boy. He put most of our pictures on cd's and almost all of them were sent to the States! So we only lost a small part of it! Meanwhile we have been driving around Mendoza for 2 days. We rented a car and visited a beautiful mountain range with a water source (Villavincencio). We camped near the snowline and the next morning we drove to Uspallata, a small village with a fantastic scenery. The movie 'Seven years in Tibet' was filmed in this area!!!!!! Amazingly beautiful!!!!!!!!! That same day we also went to the Aconcagua, a mountain of 6952m high. They also call it 'the roof of the America's' because it is the highest mountain from the northern and southern continent! We were not able to see him completely because by the time we got close enough, it started snowing, so we had a snow fight instead of the view of the Aconcagua! And to close the beautiful day we stopped at 'Puenta del Inca's', a natural bridge from limestone with some hot springs in it which give it the yellow sulfuric color. Nice! As we were not used to our new camera yet we ran out of battery (it works on normal batteries!) and had to go back to the car to get some spare batteries before being able to take some more pictures.. It is hard to change a habit once you are used to one but we are learning!!!!! We also had a great horseback riding day in the Andes! We started in a tiny little village called 'Vallecitos' and then went from 2800m up to 3500m on the back of a horse! Amazing what those animals can do and it was quite scary to walk along a small trail next to a cliff covered in snow! But the scenery was really beautiful and I enjoyed it a lot! The way down was even more scary as the paths are slippery and from time to time you feel your horse is slipping and trying to find another way to get down! My horse was quite stubborn and it was hard to keep her on the track but in the end I managed to do so (well, most of the times). After the walk we all enjoyed a great parilla with a glass of wine! We were 7 to do this day trip and it was good fun! At night we all went out for a drink! From Mendoza we moved on to San Juan, also quite a big city, in the San Juan province of Argentina. As we feel more free to visit things on our own than with a tour, we rented another car. We drove to the National Park Ischigualasto (about 350 km form San Juan), know for its beautiful colored and formed landscape and fossils of dinosaurs. A few years ago they found an exemplary of the smallest carnivore dinosaur in the whole world! On our journey we encountered giant cactus's, a snake and, yes, a tarantula just crossing the street!!!!! We could also experienced the 'Zonda', a dry warm wind. At some places it seemed like driving in the fog but it was sand being moved by the wind. This morning we visited 'cavas de Zonda'; this time we did not get to taste wine but 'champaña' from Argentina! It is one of the few caves in the world that is really built into a mountain. The other two ones are in Austria and Moldavia. The temperature remains 16-18 degrees during summer and winter and is ideal to preserve wine and champagne! We bought a bottle and will drink it on a special occasion; probably that will be tomorrow or the day after when I have my temporary passport and will be able to leave the country again! We finally are in the hotter part of Argentina (it almost never rains over here) and tonight we take the bus to Salta, where it even will be hotter!!!!!!! I will let you know when I am able to wear my bikinis! Greetings from the sun, Domi and Joris |