A Day in the Andes

On a weekend trip to Mendoza, Argentina, we had a day scheduled to spend in the actual Andes Mountains. So this past Saturday morning we all woke up really early and got dressed in some hiking gear. It was about an hour drive to get from the hotel to the base camp. On the drive there, we saw an unbelieveable view of the mountain range, including the highest point that we could see which was covered in snow. That highest visible point was called Plata, or silver. Then we had to actually drive up the mountain in this big van, and at some points, I did not think we were going to make it up. Our bus driver was great though and we arrived all in one piece at the base camp.

We had to split our group into two separate groups because there were not enough horses for us all to ride at once and then we flipped a coin to see which group did hiking or riding first. My group lost the coin toss, so we rode the horses first.
The horses were brought to our base camp, and there were about 20 wild dogs with them too. I used to ride horses up until middle school, but I completely forgot how much I loved to do it. My horse Cortito was great and listened to every command I gave him. We were at the head of the group behind our tour leader, and when we would start trotting, everyone else was further behind us. I would have loved to just keep riding the horses for the rest of the day, but we had to go back to the base camp for lunch. The other group came back just in time for the barbecue too. We ate delicious empanadas, steak sandwiches, grilled vegetables, and fresh fruit. I ate so much! Almost three of the sandwiches because they were so good. After lunch, it was our time to hike up the mountains. It was very hot, and definitely a bit of a workout to get there. We arrived at a fresh water spring and were able to drink the water straight from the hose. Water never tasted so good! Then we climbed up one final steep mountain, and from the top, it was totally worth it. I have never seen such a beautiful view in my life.

We climbed back down all the way to the base camp, had some mate, and drove back to the hotel. Overall an amazing day trip in Mendoza.