Argentina to Chile

LEts see......We tried to come to warmer weather, but found hot instead. Hiking at Mercadario we were hiking with full packs when the temperature was up to 40 degrees in the shade!
Trying to hitch hike out of Barreal we were cowering under a sapling while the temperature surpassed 45.
Down to San Juan, up to Rodeo to see if it is cooler at the windiest windsurfing lake in Argentina.
On the way in, the road is so turny that our bus manages to squash an oncoming car against the mountainside, because the road is so narrow.
Rodeo is another oasis town that is irregularly determined by the access to water, and is so bloody long and narrow that it´s impossible to move around it much, but we´re determined to cross back to Chile despite the lack of public transport through the highest pass in South America.
With a backup plan of tediously returning to San Juan, Mendoza, Santiago, La Serena and finally to Elqui....probably two days on a bus and lots of big cities, we walk and hitchhike our way to the Argentine frontier, and wait at a remote outpost in sight of the mountains that are keeping us from Chile. 6 hours and many unlucky tries later, we catch a car heading our way. 5 and 1/2 hours to go 200 km and climb 2775 metres, over the 4775 metre paso Agua Negra.
Vicuña, in Chile, is also warm and dry, but more like a traditional town layout, free of dust, and feeling like home. Endless fresh and dry fruit, vineyards, pisco, and cold beer....perfecto...
Cheryl is healing from a lengthy and stubborn cold, and we are preparing for our next mountain adventure.

Horses in Mountains

Long time no computer leisure! Still can´t upload pics though
Cerro Mercadario, Argentina, just north of Aconcagua.

I never imagined that Horses, Mules and Burros could manage the terrain that we have seen them in over the last couple of months. Here´s a couple of passages from the journal, on our 60 km hike to and from Valle Colorado at Co Mercadario.
"Passed through ¨Dead Horse Rocks again today. Watching the pack horses returning yesterday, we saw them all moving out unleashed, with three mules leading the way, practically at a trot. These mules would have packed full loads in for 15 km the day before, and another 15 km yesterday loaded, and then return out the full 30 km empty. There are no horse bones the full length of the trip except at this one km location where there are at least 4 separate locations with old bones lying amongst the rocks.
I can only surmise that freewheeling, tired , anxious mules must have occassionaly broken a leg in these large loose cobbles near the end of their day, and been shot on the spot as they are still 15 km from the nearest road."

The next day, after hiking off the trail and up into a dry plateau and stumbling on a group of Vaceros(cowboys) with horses.
"I had assumed that I was the first person to visit this plateau in years, so it was utterly mindblowing to imagine these guys moving their animals across this vast landscape. I though of Mica often today, hoping that I could convince her to ride through some landscape like this inPeru. It is amazing to see what kind of rough, rocky, steep terrain these animals can negotiate. and a very good speeds. "
Some pack trails cover hundreds of meters of loose coarse cobble, strewn between large imovable boulders. Even walking over it is difficult and despite hundreds of pack trips over the same ground it is only faintly marked with the passage of these animals, the ground is so shifting and unmarkable. Often, we walk from horse turd to horse turd as our only markers that we are going in approximately the correct direction.