Chilecito Cable Car

07.01.2015 – 08.01.2015
Chilecito, Argentina.

The Cable Car runs through the town up to La Mejicana mines in the mountains. As such, there seems to be nothing extraordinary - as in the mountains there are often cable cars, but if you look at some of the numbers, it's getting quite interesting.


The start place is here in the town of Chilecito, but the final stop is situated 35 kilometers away at the altitude of 4400 meters, and totally there are 262 towers (not making a mistake - really two hundred and sixty-two towers), some of them up to 55 meters in height.

Chilecito

07.01.2015 – 08.01.2015

The city was founded in 1715, and the original name of it was Villa Santa Rita. The current name of Chilecito (Little Chile) came from the fact that many of the miners from Chile came here to work.

The Dakar was to make a stop here , but there was no official place for onlookers and I reached there in complete darkness.

Valley de Calingasta

03.01.2015 – 04.01-2015
Journey: Calingasta – Barreal – Valle de Calingasta – Barreal – San Juan (346 km).

Do not even remember exactly who suggested to visit the valley of Calingasta or was it myself to find a beautiful picture from internet.

Just now –searching for additional information - the sentence “The most beautiful part of the province of Mendoza and San Juan” comes in mind.

The local tourist information said that the road is more-or-less drivable and no more was needed .The beginning of the road had no road sign and so the previous day I just past it . Looking back now, it was probably with the aid of some unknown force and the issue that the rear axis was repaired last night (a longer story in a previous post).


And Calingasta Valley Road was completely driveable, although some parts were like stairways so that there was no way to drive thirty km per hour. As everything inside the car and outside the car will be scattered.

2015, The First Technical Issue

02.01.2015
Journey: Uspallata – Barreal - Calingasta (171 km).

The second of January has been like always the second of Januaries. As usually – the cultural program of the morning, and then let`s see how far can be reached.

The morning's cultural program included first the visit to Cerro Tunduqueral, located 7 kilometres away from Uspallata".


For Estonians Cerro Tunduqueral is a small hill, where one can see several well-preserved petroglyphs or gravings on the rocks

New Year's Eve in the mountains

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. – Steve Jobs”

31.12.2014 – 01.01.2015
Journey: Uspallata – Paso Bonillas – Uspallata (Kokku 65 km)

Strangely enough, it is now already my third New Year's Eve in Argentina.

The year 2013 was greeted on the way to Tierra del Fuego, having arrived at Mar de Platas. The New Year's Eve of 2014 was greeted in Salta, in the same place that I visited last year to watch Dakar Rally . The duration of the time, spent in Salta, turned out a little longer as planned, but gave an opportunity to enjoy The Carnival of Salta at the beginning of March. 

And now - the year of 2015, and again (still) in Argentina . Finding a place for the occasion was no problem at all, as between Uspallata and Mendoza the mountains are beautiful and there are a number of mountain paths not mentioned on most of the maps. So – why not drive there and find a cool place,


RP-13 is the third and smallest road across the mountains towards Mendoza. And quite drivable too.