Andes Mountain Tour, Part 1: Potrerillos, Uspallata, and Rutas Sanmartinianas

So, this is something. Today, I went on a bus tour that took me out of Mendoza and high into the Andes. If you asked me as little as a year ago if I’d ever get the opportunity to insinuate myself somewhere in that mountain range, my response probably would have been something like, “The Andes? They’re those mountains in South America, right? Probably not.”

But here I am. Forgive me for repeating myself, but, so, this is something.

It was a small bus with room for just 15 passengers plus the driver and guide. The guide’s name was Rocio. The only reason I know that’s how to spell her name is that she sent me a WhatsApp message with her name on it yesterday.

The message was entirely in Spanish, so I needed to copy and paste it into Google Translate. It told me, among other things, that hotel pickups start at 7:15 am, but they have a number of pickups, so it could take a while. They’ll let me know when they are close to my hotel.

At about 7:15, Rocio shared her live location with me through WhatsApp, so I could see where they were as they made their way to my hotel.

The message also told me not to have a big breakfast. Trust me. That wasn’t information I needed. Not being a morning person, if I have to be ready for a possible 7:15 pickup, a big breakfast isn’t in the cards for me. I had no breakfast whatsoever.

I was the second-to-last pickup in Mendoza City. The passenger part of the bus had three single seats, four rows of two, and room for four people in the back row.

When I got on, the three single seats were already taken. Drats!

I took a seat in the only remaining empty two-seater. There had been one empty seat in a two-seater, but that was taken by the last person to board in the city.

By the time we left the city, the seat beside me was still empty, as was the whole back row. Yay! An empty seat beside me!

The bus then drove to the first stop, a beautiful vista (see below). After leaving there, the bus soon pulled into a fairly barren lot with little except some people standing around. It wasn’t part of the tour itinerary. It was to pick up more passengers. Five, to be exact, filling up the bus. Drats again!

Before the first stop, i.e., before the last five were aboard, Rocio asked where people were from. There was one man from France, a couple from Israel, me, the sole Canadian, and I think the rest were from various places in Argentina.

Only two people required English on the tour, the Frenchman and me. The Israelis appeared to be with another woman. She sat on the single seat across from them and spent a lot of the time at the sights with them.

When the three of them spoke together, they spoke Spanish. When the Israeli couple spoke to each other, they spoke Hebrew. So the Israelis didn’t need English, but they did talk briefly with me in flawless English, so they could have been comfortable with either.

I know a few Hebrew words. Everyone knows shalom (hello, goodbye, and peace). I won’t attempt a transliteration here, and I couldn’t possibly spell them in the Hebrew alphabet, but I learned and still can say the Hebrew words for mother, father, yes, and no. Not only that, but I still remember one complete sentence and the words within it. It’s the sentence that got me through Hebrew school, the Hebrew for “I don’t know.”

I thought about unleashing my Hebrew on the Israeli couple, but I didn’t think it would impress them.

Where was I going with that? Oh, yeah. The language on the tour.

As part of her introductions, Rocio said that the tour would be in Spanish and English, but her English was only so-so. In truth, her English was quite good. Not perfect, but quite good.

I had no problem understanding what she said when she spoke English. It helped that, unlike on the wine tour I took yesterday, the speaker system on the bus produced crystal-clear sound.

However, Rocio was clearly uncomfortable with English, which, based on the English she spoke, was probably more a case of a lack of confidence than a lack of proficiency.

When speaking on the bus, when she had time to consider what she was going to say, her English was Spanish-accented but had very few vocabulary or grammar mistakes.

I asked her a couple of questions at the stops. In those cases, her grammar was still good, but she got stuck for a word a couple of times. However, she nailed the context, so I had no problem filling in the word for her.

Her likely misplaced lack of confidence probably explains why she provided much more information in Spanish than in English. Much more.

There was one point when she spoke in Spanish for several minutes, and the English was, “Enjoy the scenery.”

That being said, I couldn’t always match up the Spanish and English durations because sometimes she started in Spanish and sometimes in English. So it’s possible that there were times when I thought she provided an exceptionally abbreviated English narration when she was, in fact, providing the English for a shorter Spanish commentary than I thought.

However, there were times when she provided no English for a very long passage of Spanish.

Nevertheless, she provided some information in English about every stop and always gave important information in both languages, such as where the bathrooms were and when we had to be back on the bus. And I was there for the views anyway, so I was fine with that.

Okay, Joel. Enough with the introduction already. People want to hear about the Andes. Let’s get on with the tour. (Is talking to yourself in the third person a bad sign?)

Andes Stop 1: Potrerillos

The first stop was just to take in the view and take photos for about 15 minutes at a lookout near a town called Potrerillos. The view was spectacular. Then again, why would the tour company schedule a photo stop at some ugly dump of a place?

They didn’t. It was truly breathtaking.

WARNING: Throughout this post and the Part Two entry that I’ll publish soonish, expect extensive use of words like spectacular, breathtaking, stunning, glorious and other synonyms. The views of the Andes were all that.

The lookout provided a view of a richly blue reservoir, with the Andes as a backdrop.

This was not far into the Andes and the mountains there weren’t the highest of them. But even when we first drove into the mountains, they were higher than what, if left to my own devices, I would call foothills. And I am left to my own devices, so they’re not foothills, dammit.

Along the way past Potrierillos, the mountains were mostly rugged. Their colours ranged from a reddish hue to a few different shades of grey. Rocio explained that it’s the minerals present that create the colours of the mountains.

I should probably take a bit of a break here and mention something that Potrellos brought to mind. I’ve been using “Mendoza” to mean Mendoza City, which I think is common usage. But Mendoza is also a province, of which Mendoza City and Potrerillos are a part. It will probably be clear from the context in these Mendoza City pages what I mean.

There is also a Mendoza River. The route we travelled today was beside the Mendoza River for a fair piece.

Stop 2: Uspallata

The next stop was in Upsallata, a town in a scenic, green valley in the Andes. It has a pleasant, short main street with some shops and restaurants, including the restaurant the bus stopped in front of.

I assume this stop was why Rocio’s message yesterday encouraged not eating a big breakfast. At the restaurant, she recommended having breakfast there and using the toilets if we needed them. (The tour does not include meals, so breakfast there was optional.) The restaurant allowed tour passengers to use the washroom, whether they ate there or not. I guess the tour company brings in enough business that the restaurant wants to keep it happy.

I tend to have small breakfasts. I finished my espresso and pastry in short order and walked a bit on the shopping street before it was time to get back on the bus.

One feature of Uspallata, in addition to its stunning surroundings, has, or at least had was when I was there, quite independent dogs. In my brief walk, I saw a half dozen or more dogs out unsupervised, either sitting or ambling, seemingly fully contented with their lives, without the immediate presence of humans. They were very good dogs.

Andes Stop 3: Rutas Sanmartinianas

Rutas Sanmartinianas is a historical site nestled beautifully in the Andes. It was a base in the battle for the liberation of Argentina, Chile, and Peru from Spain.

A little while before arriving there, Rocio spoke a little in English about General San Martin, a national hero in that battle for independence. (I assume she was speaking at length about the same thing in Spanish because she mentioned San Martin several times in her Spanish discourse. What she was saying about him for all that time was and remains a mystery to me.)

As we drove through one of the Andes passes, she said that San Martin led troops, horses, and cows through that pass. I imagine that the horses and cows were conscripted. I don’t know if the soldiers were volunteers.

Because of the temporal proximity of Rocio saying that to our arrival at Rutas Sanmartinianas, I assume that he was responsible for the base camp there. But she didn’t say that explicitly, so I might be wrong. Then again, the name, Rutas Sanmartinianas, probably confirms my theory.

The Rutas Sanmartinianas is beautiful. There is a handsome arched stone bridge, but I don’t know the reason for it. There is a lovely river beside the site, but it doesn’t flow under the bridge, nor does the river’s route suggest it might ever have done so. The land under the bridge was bone dry when I was there, but I can’t exclude the possibility that there was a stream there at one point or that there still could be during the rainy season or after winter when there’s a lot of snowmelt.

Whatever the reason for the bridge, it and its surroundings make for a gorgeous scene.

Adding to the natural beauty, some visitors, who I assume were contemporary, had artistically placed some small stones on a large rock there.

We left Rutas Sanmartinianas before noon and well before our lunch stop, which is normally my post break-point, but I’m going to end this post here.

This has already become rather long. The afternoon post will not have to include the long introduction above. So, in terms of equitably balancing the lengths of the two posts, this is probably a good point to pause for now and pick it up later.

That being said, I’m considering putting in a long riff that I hope will be uncomfortably humourous in the afternoon post. That might make that one long, causing me to regret not pushing on a little more with this post rather than saving it for the next. Regrets. I’ve had many. But then again, too many to mention.