It's Christmas time, and we are not keen on putting up the plastic tree for a fifth time in a row. Instead we decided to go and explore our neighbouring country, Argentina. The planned loop: cross the Andes into Mendoza, drive north to Villa Union and Fiambala, cross the Andes again, return to Santiago via Bahia Inglesa and La Serena. However, entering Argentina with a (Chilean rental) car is no easy task! It requires some thorough preparation... From all we've been told beforehand, Argentina's ATM's often don't have cash, you can't rely on credit cards either, and petrol stations might lack the petrol, that you were counting on. Also, you may come across corrupt police, and need endless paperwork for everything anyway. So, obviously we tried to provide for all contingencies, stacked up on Argentinian pesos (which we did need), got a jerry can (which we almost needed). Florian already applied for the car documents way ahead. Of course Hertz forgot about it and only came into action at the eleventh hour, when we finally received a bunch of paper with weird notarial notes, insurances, nice stamps and fanciful signatures from god knows whom. 12 pages in total!! But it paid off and we entered Argentina without too big a hassle.
Right after the boarder we caught a glimpse of the Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Southern Hemisphere (6961m). Further on the RN7 highway is the beautiful sulphur-coloured Puente del Inca (Inca bridge) and the reservoir of Potrerillos. And now on to Menoza! Our roadtrip is just beginning...
