The road to Mendoza - Day 2

 

The next morning we meet a wide eyed and shell shocked Ham in the car park. He claims no sleep on account of a cacophony of deafening snores from his room mate. 'Humbug' says James and 'stop belly aching'!

There is a stiff southerly wind blowing and everyone wraps up to keep out the wind and cold. The drive is 558km to Mendoza across more endless flat pampa interspersed with large shallow lakes full of Flamingos, Storks & Roseate Spoonbills. 

About fifty km into our drive Chris is stopped by the Police for not having his lights turned on. The arrest is conducted via GoogleTranslate but the Policeman met his match in Chris who steadfastly refused to part initially with 4500 peso and when escalated to the senior officer with 20,000 peso. After a ten minute standoff the Policeman capitulated and Chris trundled off with lights still turned off. In the meantime Nigel had turned around to help Dom having finally started monitoring comms!) and Ham and James were making friends on the side of the road.

Meanwhile AUU295's gearbox is having a rough old ride this morning. James has taken to the wheel and Ham is wincing at every gear change. Not sure which is louder the grinding or the snoring! As the saying goes "if you can't find it, grind it" but not to be taken literally with another 16000km to go!

At lunch we discover our AirBnB has been cancelled so Dominic hastily arranges another house in a winery in the wine making area of Mendoza. There aren't enough bedrooms to go round but we will make do, there's plenty of room. Monday marks the start of lent and Argentina celebrates with two days of carnival. Every guest house and hotel room is full.

At 110km from Mendoza the magnificent Andes and snow capped Aconcagua (6800m) come into view, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. They are majestic and a welcome sight since we will be following them all the way up to the Darien gap.

Our winery house is excellent and so is its resident Baccus, a lovely old deaf Alsatian who lives there on his own. He is very pleased to have some company but has a penchant for leaving dozens of "Goeffery's" everywhere and one has to keep a sharp look out when walking around the estate. Dominic and NG on mattresses on the floor and Ham has barricaded himself in a room on his own well clear of James!