mad nomad: Since there were requests for Angeliki to write a little something about our adventures, she penned the following article. Enjoy!

After Elias’ excursion to the abandoned goldmine, we stayed for a few days at a hostel for paragliders in Famatina. During the daytime, Elias would paraglide with them in the surrounding area, whilst during the night time we would all feast on grilled meats, while some played live music! We spent some happy days there and met several locals who enriched our knowledge and understanding of Argentina and the culture of its people.

The impressive formations at the Talampaya National Park compose an eerie landscape!

It was now time for our first visits to national parks in Argentina. We entered the neighbouring parks of Talampaya and Ischigualasto and ventured in them quite a bit. We marvelled at the weird rock formations, the ancient petroglyphs, the peculiar colours and we travelled back in time, in the era of dinosaurs! In and around these national parks we also saw our first guanacos, which are camelids and related to llamas! They are not tame however, so they wouldn’t let us get too close to them. I adored them and thankfully our paths cross often!

These are our beloved guanacos!

Our next stop was the cute town of Barreal, which we used as our gateway to a number of activities, so we stayed there for a few days. We visited an observatory and marvelled at an under (Chinese) construction radio telescope, which, once complete, will be the largest in Latin America. Elias tried land sailing for the first time at the Pampa del Leoncito, which is plagued by strong winds that can lift a grown man up! Elias really enjoyed land sailing and I believe he’ll do it again, once he gets the chance!

When Elias found out that he could try out land sailing at Pampa del Leoncito, he went for it without a second thought!

In the surrounding mountains, there is a very special stream, which is turquoise, due to the oxidised copper in its bed! In order to see it, we had to drive around 60 km (37 miles) on a rough dirt road that belongs to a private, mining company. Once we secured the required permit, we spent the night at Laguna Blanca, at an altitude of 3,100 metres (10,171 ft). On the following day, we did a day’s long hike to an altitude of 4,100 metres (13,451 ft). We walked on our first snow and we were escorted, from a distance, by several guanacos. The view, once we reached the stream, was well impressive and it was definitely worth the ascent, as well as my accidental fall in the other stream, the muddy one!

Hiking to Arroyo Turquesa led us to one of the most impressive landscapes we have ever laid our eyes on!

A little later, we also used as our base the town of Uspallata, from which we ventured towards the Aconcagua National Park, which is home to the highest mountain of the American continent, at an altitude of 6,961 metres (22,838 ft). The sight is most impressive! Prior to arriving at the legendary mountain, we visited a cemetery on the way, the so-called Cementerio del Andinista, which has an interesting story… At the beginning of the previous century, workers, who died from hardships during the construction of Argentina’s railway network, were buried there. Later on, an unfortunate British mountaineer, who died while attempting to reach the summit of Aconcagua, was buried there. Thus, a tradition of burying mountaineers in said cemetery started. In recent years, quite a few people ask to be buried there, so that their final resting place has a view of the mountains. Before bidding farewell to Uspallata, we visited Cerro Tunduqueral, in order to see the interesting petroglyphs, one of which depicts the mushroom of the ancient Super Mario!

We were blessed to marvel at the highest peak in the whole of the American continent, Mount Aconcagua (6,961 metres / 22,838 ft)!

The city of Mendoza was our next stop. It is a fairly large city, which is famous for its countless vineyards. Although I really like wine, I had always been snobbish of New World wines, until I tried Malbec in Buenos Aires, which I got very excited about! Whilst I tried to visit a winery, it turned out to be very difficult and expensive, so I let it go. We spent about a week in Mendoza, Elias did some paragliding, we got provisions for the next leg of our trip and we repaired Don Rufos that had a few issues. Moreover, we ate a lot of ice creams and empanadas, the famous pasties with all sorts of filings. We ate ice cream at the same place every day and its price would increase every day! Unfortunately that’s typical of Argentina’s economy… In Mendoza we completed the first leg of our journey in Argentina, since we had reached the Andes, from where we started our drive down towards the legendary Patagonia and our final destination, Tierra del Fuego!

Elias flew above Mendoza on his paraglider!

This is the third episode of our documentary about our adventures in Argentina (with English subtitles):