We were at the border between Argentina and Chile in a pass at over two thousand meters, the height at which altitude sickness symptoms can appear. The blustery wind blowing straight off the Andes, was a shock after the warm coast. Five minutes outside was all we'd been given and in the cold it had been enough. But the immigration process took another 2 hours and the headache didn't go away.
After filing singly through passport control, our luggage was scanned, before our hand luggage searched. The woman next to us pulled out a laptop and immediately produced the receipts. Five minutes earlier, I'd read in the guidebook that it's a good idea to carry purchase receipts for all electronics.
I looked at Jeff concerned. Our turn was next and we opened our camera bag brimming with gadgets, the laptop proudly sitting on top. The customs official picked it right up and started inspecting the stickers on the bottom. I wondered how we were going to explain that the computer was bought in the US, but not by us and that we'd taken it out of Australia.
He asked to see our passports, which he flicked through slowly studying the stamps on every page. My head was pounding. Reaching the end, he took another look at the stickers and handed both back to us, nodded and moved to the next person.
Ten minutes later after we'd boarded the bus, the woman with the laptop climbed on board relieved.
On the Chilean side of the Andes the barren earth was grey with occasional patches of snow that had grown more frequent the higher we'd climbed. It was a harsh place with jagged peaks all around their outlines contrasting sharply with the dull sky.
The Argentinian side was completely different. After two hours in the customs shed, we emerged to find the clouds had dissipated and the sun was warming the mountains. Here the earth was equally barren but was painted with a colourful palette of pastel shades.
We descended through a valley with the coloured peaks towering on either side of us. Being amongst them, we could feel the presence of the mountains unlike that I have ever felt before. And somewhere out there was Aconcagua, the western hemisphere's highest peak.
Around each bend the view seemed to get even better with a new backdrop of forms or colours and it was probably fortunate that we weren't driving as we would have still been there on the side of the road taking pictures as the sun set.
We had a long way to descend and the landscape went on and on as we wound downwards next to the river. Our headaches hadn't gone away and I suddenly realised that I was craving coffee. It dawned on me that we had a boring old caffeine headache not the symptoms of altitude sickness.
Our first mission in Mendoza was therefore to seek out a coffee, which the book promised would be an improvement on the stuff served in Chile. I'm sorry LAN but powdered coffee creamer is not milk.
Probably because of the good coffee, the people of Mendoza seemed cheerful and we quickly felt comfortable wandering the bustling streets that seemed a lot more European than what we'd seen in Chile. In the pedestrian mall, cafes were spread across the footpath under the canopy of the dense trees that also lined the main streets. We sat down to an 'early' dinner which was served after 9pm and spent the rest of the evening watching people go by.
Oh and the coffee was the best we'd tasted since Brisbane.
Next stop: Cycling wineries
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