Aconcagua – the highest mountain outside Asia

On my way from Mendoza to Chile it all ended up a little bit different then planned. As I wanted to see Mount Aconcagua, with 6962m the highest mountain outside the Himalaya, I booked a bus ticket to Los Penitentes, which was described as ski resort, but also with lots of trekking tourists in summer. When I arrived there it was maybe 15 buildings, most of them hostel or hotels – all closed.

The only open hostel was Hostel International, where I was the only guest. I hoped that I could rent a tent and cooking equipment somewhere to spend 2 or 3 days in the park, but this wasn‘t possible so I decided to buy a bus ticket to Santiago (Valparaiso was unfortunately not possible from here) and just spend here one night. In the afternoon I started to hike towards the park, but fortunately my first hitchhiking attempts in South America where successful and one of the doctors from the Park, who spoke a little bit English, brought me to the entrance of the park.
For just 20 Pesos (roughly 2 €) I was allowed to do the Laguna Circuit. Fortunately there were no clouds and I got some great views of Aconcagua. Also there were some great rock formations and fossiles to see. After spending two hours in the park, I walked back to Puenta del Inca, a small village near the park entrance. There I could see a bridge, which was created from nature just out of stone. Quite impressive what nature can do in Thousands and Millions of years! After buying some snacks in the Kiosk, I walked back to Los Penitentes where I arrived 90 minutes later.
I had a quite night in the hostel and could sleep for ten hours. In the morning I got a basic, but good breakfast, and killed the time until my bus would arrive with organizing pictures for my blog, writing some articles and having a look, what I could do in Chile.

5 thoughts on “Aconcagua – the highest mountain outside Asia”

  1. Super Fotos, Geologia muy interessante, puedo oler el aire fresco
    de los Andes….buen viaje
    P.S. El PC de Trude no funciona bien, hace problemas, ella no puede ver tu blog, funcuiona sólo a veces…..hasta luego

  2. so guat der hotdog ausschaut, der woa doch scho moi i rosario oder isst du inzwischen nur mehr hotdogs?

    apropos… se levercheese cries! mahlzeit und tschüss!

  3. Gertrude Teufl

    Hallo Stefan, war schon länger nicht im Blog, mein PC spinnt ein ziemlich arg.
    Das ist ja toll, was Du alles schon gesehen hast. Dieser riesige Wasserfall und dann auf einmal eine super Weingegend! Sag kommst du wirklich erst in zwei Monaten heim ? Ich glaub, diesmal schaff ich kein so großes Plakat ! Ganz liebe Grüße und weiter alles Gute, freu mich auf ein Wiedersehen ! Oma

  4. wenn der zeitgeist
    dich ins bein beisst
    und dein hausgeist
    dich hinausschmeisst
    weil der weingeist
    um dein hirn kreist

    dann ist es höchste zeit

    dass du dem zeitgeist
    auf die birn scheisst

    blopp so… schen gruß vom sigi maron!

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