October 9th 2018: Ruben

Life can be very cruel. We lost a very  good friend this week after a tragic car accident. Ruben (on the right with Nienke while doing the Heaphy track in New Zealand 2 years ago) leaves behind Sabien and 3 children. This tragic loss makes us realise even more how fragile and precious life is and how important it is to enjoy every minute of it. Ruben will never be forgotten and Sabien and the children will always be in our hearts.

This is Paco, the guard donkey at the last place in our previous entry. The owner had just put his property on AirBNB when we booked. Wasn't really ready for it yet, but he was very friendly so we helped him with a lot of tips.

A night later we stayed at a quirky place from South African owners. A totally recycled and upcycled house. Very nice people indeed, invited us over for the BBQ right away. Had some interesting talks about politics and travelling.

And he gave us some good tips about wineries in the area. Here we're at Villard winery in Casablanca. Pretty huge compared to NZ.

His son helped us getting rid of the lock on our spare wheel. Used a huge angle grinder to cut it through. Turned out the car dealer had been lying all the time. No spare keys, papers not ready, etc. So we spent our 25th anniversary at the car dealers place, being angry at them and upset with with the bad news about Ruben in hospital.

We were quite happy to leave Chile and drive through the Andes. On the phone you can see the many bends we had to take to get over the very high pass. With our mind still gone a bit we managed to completely miss the Aduana, the Argentinian Immigration. When we finally noticed it we had to drive back 17 km to get the necessary stamps. Luckily the Aduana did not see the mistake in our paperwork. The idiots from the car dealer made us 'Germans' on the authorisation form. Germans!!! Now we can go to the 'Beerfest' with Birgit, our German friend.

Magnificent view over the many hairpin bends on the Chilean side.

At the top, Cerro Aconcagua, an impressive mountain, 6960.8 meter high.

Stunning drive through the mountains of the Andes.

The colours of the spectacle around us were amazing.

Driving around in this scenery is definitely not boring.

Nienke filmed quite a bit when we were driving and taped me singing along with Mumford and Sons.

Got our first taste of the great Argentinian wines in the very first village we ran into. We ordered a quick lunch and both got a rather generous glass of Malbec, about 3 to 4 times the size of the portions you get on the Chilean side. Lesson well learned as we still had a few miles to travel to Mendoza.

Mendoza is a town in central west Argentina, famous for its wine. So we booked the 'Trout and Wine' tour (?) and visited 4 beautiful wineries. Here you see an experiment, ageing wine in concrete barrels. They were even thinking of going back to concrete amphora's.

Humongous tanks in the Alta Vista winery.

We have done quite some wine tasting in New Zealand, but this was something special. Almost laboratory like. Each of us sitting at a table with sinks in front of us.

Unfortunately we could not book a room here. Would have been nice to put our tent up here between the barrels.

I think our tour lasted about 5 hours and we're absolutely fans of the Argentinian Malbec now. But also of the Torrentes, a white wine made of the Torrentes grapes from the north of Argentina. It's a bit comparable with Viognier.

Somehow we woke up again the next day and had a nice stroll through Mendoza. In the evening we stumbled upon a big party (I think they're following us) in the main square with lots of folklore and nice food. Several really big paella pans. Delicious.

These beautiful mountains we saw on out way to the Talampaya gorge. We had the idea of walking through it, in 34 degrees. Unfortunately for us there had been sightings of a puma, for the first time in 30 years. This meant that the word 'puma' was present in every sentence around us.

Our 5 hour walk was reduced to 2 hours as we were not to disturb the puma, or it was too dangerous. We think our guide was just lazy and used it as an excuse to get back to the shade.

It was beautiful enough not to be too disappointed. On this picture you can see Nienke and I at the bottom doing something I still do not understand. Is apparently funny.

Haven't seen a puma or even signs of it. The other tourist saw puma signs in every piece of animal pooh around.

The excitement was all a bit hilarious. A single puma would not attack 5 adults walking in a canyon, let alone a minibus full of lazy tourists. Besides, they found a cadaver in the small gorge we were meant to walk back through, so it wasn't hungry any more. It all made me think of the hysteria in the Netherlands when "poema's" and wolves were sighted in the Veluwe.

We decided to use the time we would have spend sweating in the gorge on a new road, piercing and winding itself through the Sierra de Valle Fertil. So nice. Not sure why they called it 'fertil', everything was extremely dry.

This Argentinian version of Uluru marks the border of Ischigualastu, or Valley of the Moon. According to the guide in these prehistoric surroundings the Inca's already named them the Valley of the moon.

Nienke wondered, to the amusement of other English speaking tourists, how the Inca's knew what the surface of the moon looked like. Ah well, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The guide was talking so fast that even Nienke had troubles understanding her. I guess the round stone balls were dinosaur pooh. Fossilised of course.

What a beautiful park. We saw animal shapes in the rock formations around us.

A snail?

The sun emphasised the beautiful colours around us.

A group of guanaco's were curious what we were doing there.

I think this is pretty much proof South America and Australia were once connected. The red dust is starting to cover our car which we actually don't really mind. A dirty car may attract less burgles. Not that we feel unsafe, the people are so very kind here.

We've picked up a some locals a few times. That's what you do here, you help each other. Gave Nienke the chance to practise her Duolingo in reality. It was already dark when we drove back to our hotel. Driving in the dark is quite a challenge here. Black horses standing half on the road, Argentinian cars without lights (not kidding you), cyclists and scooters without lights, people walking in the dark, etc. We'll try to avoid driving at night from now on. Amazingly you see quite some Renaults 12, Peugeots 504, deux chevaux and other in Europe and New Zealand extinct cars. Driving very slowly of course, often hanging in there with duct tape and pieces of string. Usually missing some apparently unnecessary parts like lights, bumpers, and windows. And they told us to make sure the car was in tip top shape to avoid fines from the Argentinian police!

Last picture for today. The sun going down over Ischigualastu, casting our shadows over the mountains. Fitting picture, makes us realise how Ruben has casted his loving shadow over our lives. We will always remember him.