USPALLATA

Hopefully, tomorrow I shad be off across the Andes. I consider the widning mountain road from Portillo (ski center) to Uspallata, to be one of the most beautful I have been on anywhere, right up there with northern Spain, the Italian Alps, and northern Vermont.

There are 14 tunnels carved into red sandstone, with blind curves, steep plunges down to the Mendoza River, and the defunct Los Andes-Mendoza railroad from 1904 left to the elements.

In Uspallata, a town whose claim to fame was to have been the location for a B. Pitt flick, Seven Years in TIbet (did they get permission from Bowie for that one, or was the book first?). One other thing that makes the town special are thousands of Poplar trees lining the roads, in the midst of the dry and rockiness of the surrounding landscapes.

The Patagonia-Atacama Rally will blow by on Saturday, so I will be sure to try to get some pics of that for posting. I was reading the paper this morning and they mentioned an accident. Rally driver versus local.

There are very very small towns in Argentina. The deep Argentina, unrelated to fashion mecca Buenos Aires. Little places that are entities unto themselves. The sort of place that automatically makes you think, what do these people survive on?
Anyway, a local man was driving his 30 year old Peugeot 504 sedan, and after looking to see if anyone was coming, drove across an intersection to be hit at 100 kph by a 104 octane propelled Mitsubishi rally car driven by first place Brazilian, Neves.
The whole ¨town¨came out to see what would happen. The local police officer was as startled by all the events as a backyard chicken so soon the Brazilian decided to try his luck and simply left after writing down some Sao Paulo phone numbers on a tear of paper.
Local driver was left with a non functioning piece of national industry, and was last seen pan handling 12 pesos for bus fare to Neuquen.

Hmmm...