Hello from Mendoza, Argentina

Marshall, Terri, Louise and Nancy consulting the Aconcagua map in the Santiago airport.

We arrived in Mendoza, Argentina, at 11:30 this morning after a short flight over the Andes. I had my nose and camera pressed to the porthole getting my first view of the Andes. One stood in the distance higher than the others, and I bet it was Aconcagua, but no one around me knew for sure.

We stood for a long time in  line waiting for the lone immigration official while we watched the men unload the luggage from our plane. None of the actors moved with any haste. Here in Argentina things move a little mas despacio.

We had been in transit for 27 hours. I flew from San Francisco to L.A on Monday morning and almost straightaway ran into Terri, Louise and Nancy, who walked right behind me into the security line. We boarded a LAN Chile flight bound for Santiago, Chile via Lima, Peru.

LAN Chile is the national airline of a South American country, and for me that has always conjured up images of a sweaty cabin with stained seats, maybe some chickens, and luggage bins held closed with duct tape. But the LAN plane from L.A. to Santiago was clean and bright, the roomiest cabin I´d ever been in, and my little TV played 30 movies.

A shot of the Andes from the plane.

Just after dawn we landed in Santiago to see the Andes swim into view through the smog.  Our party rounded out when Marshall found us in the Santiago airport. Then it was the half-hour hop to Mendoza.

After clearing customs, we were met by one of our guides, a lanky thirtysomething with a scraggly beard who is named Martin and calls himself Tincho. We threw our bags in the trailer behind a van and drove out of the airport, past the tiny vineyard that stands at the entrance, and toward the Hotel Aconcagua at the city center.  I looked out the windows and tried to be attentive to my first South American city, but I was so sleepy that I nodded off and dropped my water bottle.

Mendoza is blissfully warm (86 degrees on arrival!) after a cold December in San Francisco. The streets, at least those in this part of the city, are cobbled and shaded under a canopy of  broad-leafed trees.

The five of us in a park near our Mendoza hotel.

After a few hours relaxing in our rooms, the five of us met in the hotel lobby and walked to a little side avenue where there are outdoor cafes and no cars.  We ordered two pizzas (the best had ham, green olives, pineapple and caramelized brown sugar that left our fingers sticky). We also successfully got Louise, at the age of 53, to enjoy the first beer of her life by mixing Andes brand beer with 7Up.

The street remind me of any Mexican city, with smoke-belching buses and stone-lined trenches for storm drains, but the people are different. The Argentinians aren´t as friendly as Mexicans but have better fashion sense. You are hardly a woman here if you´re not wearing delicate sandals and tight jeans.

Tomorrow we will eat some more, walk around and see the sights, visit one of the numerous outdoor stores to buy last-minute supplies, and of course obsessively pack and repack our bags. The last two members of our party, Frank and Rich, arrive tomorrow, and on Thursday we head for the mountain.

Terri and Louise enjoying dinner.

After dinner, we walked lazily to the town square and browsed the stands selling knickknacks. The air was just right, and, at 9:30 p.m., the light was still draining from the sky and painting it royal purple. We stopped for an ice cream.

As I strolled along, licking at my cherry cone, fingers sticky with sugar, caressed by the humid, warm night air, I thought, “In a few days, I will be colder than the inside of this ice cream.”

There´s something to think about.

Enjoy the frozen dessert now, lads, for tomorrow we´ll be the frozen dessert.