Argentina’s Payunia and Mendoza

The second half of our Argentina trip picks up with us leaving Junin de los Andes going to Payunia and Mendoza. We stayed at an isolated ranch in a Mars-like landscape. We took a tour of a national park, did some white water rafting, and a bike ride paired with wine tasting. What could go wrong? I continued to be irritated by people not being on time, but I was also able to relax a bit more and enjoy the wonderful scenery. If you want to hear the first part of our Argentina adventure, you can look for Argentina’s Lake District.

Visit the main story page to see both the English and Spanish and to download the side-by-side text.

Story text

After our (mis)adventures in Junin, we went north to an eco-tourism ranch in Payunia outside of Malargüe then moved on to Mendoza, a famous wine region. We continued to encounter unexpected adventures. Some aspects were enjoyable and some were mentally challenging. 

Argentina is a big country, but the vastness only became tangible when we were trying  to get to various places within the country. As we made plans to leave Junin de los Andes to get to Malargüe, the journey turned out to be quite long and complicated. We needed to take 3 different buses over the course of 24 hours, including taking an overnight bus. 

I’d never taken an overnight bus before and was excited for this new adventure. The double decker bus had a driver and a server, was more comfortable than an airplane, and the assigned seats fully reclined. We sat in the upper level of the bus and we had meal service, plus snacks and drinks.

The most intriguing part of the bus journey were the stops in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. At various times during the night, I could feel the bus slow down and pull over to pick up someone standing on the side of the road. A lone soul stood in the dark, on the side of the road, in the dirt, without a “bus stop” sign in sight. 

It was amazing that the driver could see the person on the side of the rural road, while traveling at high speeds and car headlights shining in his eyes. What’s more amazing is that someone knew to stand in just that spot, at just that time, and that the bus would see them and pick them up. If the bus didn’t stop for them, they would spend a rough night sitting on the side of that road. 

We made it to Malargüe, spent one night, then went to stay at a puesto called Kiñe. It was an eco-tourism ranch inside the Payunia reserve. La Reserva Provincial La Payunia was established in 1988. Payunia has the highest concentration of volcanoes in the world. If you were strong enough, you could probably throw a stone from one volcano to another! The earth and rocks were black from the lava and red from the iron oxides in the rocks. It felt a bit like being on Mars, given the red rocks and iron oxide. There’s no soil - it’s all rocks and minerals. It’s also considered a desert. This leaves the landscape rather stark, with only the hardiest plants and animals surviving. The most common plant is a low-growing grass. The largest animal in the area is the guanaco.

Our guidebook called Footprints had briefly mentioned Kiñe and we reached out via email to contact them. We thought the puesto would be some sort of small town. From the description in the guidebook, we knew that there would be food, beds, hiking, and horseback riding. We didn’t know how many other guests would be staying there. 

The place also had a website, but in those days, websites were very simple. It may have had the location, email address, and a few lines in Spanish. When we emailed back and forth with Kiñe, we wrote in Spanish. There was no Google Translate available, so I had to take my best guess at what the website and emails said. 

To get to Kiñe, we took a 4×4 from the hotel. Salvador picked us up and took us on a dirt road. It was pretty satisfying to be doing such unique travel, in the middle of nowhere. We felt pretty special! The road Salvador took went through a dry river bed that gets out every time it rains. In the summer, when we were there, it rains every day, so the road gets washed out every day. 

There had been a huge thunderstorm the night before, turning the road into deep mud that even a 4x4 couldn’t get through. A Toyota 4×4 had gotten stuck in the mud and a tractor was trying to dig it out of the mud. We waited for 1.5 hours for the tracker to do its work and shared tea with Salvador. It was fun to stand in the middle of nowhere, drinking tea, practising Spanish, and watching a tractor work. 

Salvador’s English was pretty good and my Spanish was acceptable, but I still didn’t understand the exact details of our travel plans. Eventually we made it to a house, but it was not Kiñe. It was Aldo’s son’s home where he, his wife, and his small daughter fed us lunch and then the son took us for a hike. The hike was more like a walk in someone’s giant backyard and wasn’t an official trail. We hiked in the hot climate, passing cactus, and went up a large hill made from rocks. Although it was off in the distance, we got a great view of Laguna de Llancanelo and could see scores of flamingos in the lake.

After the hike, we got back in the 4x4 and travelled the rest of the way to Kiñe. The puesto was a single family home, a ranch in the barren landscape where the family raised cattle. There were tall evergreen trees around the home to mark it on the landscape. I would estimate that the closest neighbour was where we had come from, probably 10km away.

In the home, there were no other guests. It was just me and Chris staying with this family, in a separate, private area with a sitting area, a bedroom with bunk beds, and a bathroom. It was very simple but quite comfortable. 

The 4pm late afternoon arrival held somewhat awkward introductions. We got out of the car, got our suitcases, and tried to speak in Spanish with the family. I’m not sure they understood anything we said. The father, mother, and daughter didn’t tell us their names, but they did offer us coffee and bread with jam. We figured out two of their names during our stay: the father was Aldo and his 16 year-old daughter was named Roxana. She had long black hair and a shy smile. This 3-night stay would be a test for my Spanish. The father and mother didn’t speak English. Their 16 year old daughter, Roxana, was learning English in school but refused to practice with us.

In traditional Argentine style, dinner was at 9pm. We had about 4 hours between our snack and dinner. We settled in, then Roxana entertained us. I thought we might be too old for her, but she spent a lot of time with us in the days we were there. Maybe she wanted some company! Fresh blood. Our first night, we played cards with her and asked her questions about the puesto.

While playing cards, Roxana told us a few things about the ranch. What she said and what we understood were probably not the same… We understood that the water was not potable and whenever we wanted more water, we needed to ask the family for bottled water. 

She also said not to use the electricity unless it was absolutely necessary or until the sun went down. The family generated all the electricity themselves. At the time, I didn’t understand how they did it. We played our card game in the near dark, holding them up to the moonlight coming in through the window. When we ate dinner, we were allowed to turn on the lights.

Before leaving the nearest down, we didn’t really think about food and snacks. During our evening with Roxana, we realized we had no access to food other than what the family served at mealtime, and we didn’t bring many snacks! Luckily their meals were delicious and large, so food wasn’t a problem. 

During the first night of being at Kiñe, we quickly understood that living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere necessitated self-sufficiency. As well as making a tough living on their ranch, this family invited tourists into their home to share their way of life. Staying with this family is still a real travel highlight for me. 

In terms of hiking and horseback riding, these would prove to be very simple and somewhat extraordinary adventures, too. The hiking could more be described as walking around their extensive ranch. There were no trails and we could wander wherever we wanted. The scenery was red dirt, short grasses, small volcanoes, lizards and chinchillas everywhere, and a few wild flowers. We hiked up a naturally occurring spring which ran into a small waterfall. Roxana explained that this was the family’s water for the ranch, for all their needs. It was clean enough to take from the source without treatment. (We still weren’t sure if this made the water potable.) That night, we passed the time by playing cards, talking, and reading in the near-dark. No TV, no radio. 

For our next adventure, we went on a horseback ride through their ranch. Roxana put us on two testy horses. We are not strong horseback riders, but I’m a better rider than Chris. This is only because when I was a kid, I had a friend who had horses and she invited me over quite frequently one summer. I also went to Girl Scout camp and Yosemite National Park a few times and learned how to ride horses there. We’ve done other traveling adventures that were on horseback and the temperament and size of the horse really depends on the country. Some horses are big, powerful, and calm. Other horses are smaller, wiley, and impatient with novice riders.

The two horses we rode on were the persnickety and impatient kind. They only wanted to walk next to each other. Chris wasn’t knowledgeable enough to steer his horse away from mine. I tried to avoid his horse, but every so often the two horses managed to walk side by side, which meant our legs would be crushed between their bodies. 

We still didn’t totally understand what the cabalgata would include, but we understood there would be a bbq (or asado) at some point. During the journey, we saw a lot of wild guanacos plus their piles of poop, which Roxana repeatedly pointed to and said “el baño.” She explained that pumas hunted the guanaco, and any other prey they could get. We saw cattle, sheep, horses all running, grazing, and living at large.

After 2.5 hours of riding, we arrived at the asado pit and stiffly got off the horses. Aldo, the father, was already there cooking a freshly killed baby sheep. It was cut open and strung up on a cast iron rotisserie, cooking over hot coals. Soon that little baby lamb was ready to eat. It was fresh, salty, juicy, meaty, and fatty. In the best Spanish I could, I told Aldo that this was simply the best meat I’ve ever eaten.

During lunch, a storm moved in, as usually happens in the afternoons in Payunia. In the distance, we saw clouds that turned into a funnel cloud. Roxana said it was the first time she had seen a funnel cloud in that area, which was alarming! We packed up everything, got back on the horses, and started riding back home. Aldo followed in his truck, at the same pace as us, on the nearby road in case the looming storm turned nasty. A heavy rain started and Roxana led us back to the truck and she cobbled the horses so they wouldn’t run too far away. 

With seconds to spare, the four of us crammed onto the bench seat of the cab and it hailed for about 10 minutes. The horses stood in the field getting struck by the small balls of ice. Given the landscape, there was no protection for the horses. Lightning and thunder struck and clambored around us. There was a lightning strike about 250m in front of the truck, and the storm was right overhead. After an intense 10 minutes, the worst of the storm passed, leaving just rain. We got out of the truck, got back on the horses, and made our way back to the ranch. 

On the way back from the BBQ, Chris’s horse decided it had had enough of him for the day. Suddenly it laid down on the ground, sending Chris tumbling the ground, with his foot stuck in the stirrup. I was worried for Chris and his foot, but burst out laughing at the surprised look on his face and his horse’s very cavalier attitude! Roxana looked shocked. She’d probably never seen a horse behave this way! Somehow, without my help, Chris’s foot was set free and he was fine, although a bit dirty.

We returned at about 5pm, read our books, took a shower, and had dinner at 9pm. The mother made flan for dessert, which is one of my favourite desserts. Hers was the best flan I’d ever had. It was light and fluffy, with just enough caramel and an excellent depth of flavour. When I told the mom it was the best flan I’d ever had, she gave me another serving! What a great day for food. 

The next day we did some walking around by ourselves, and played cards with Roxana. She showed us the gifts she had gotten the year before for her quinceanera. One of them was a set of embroidered white towels that she kept in the gift box. She explained that these towels were meant for her children. 

It struck me that in my culture, at 15 years old, most of my friends would never receive towels to save for their children to use. I also appreciated that Roxana and her family celebrated puberty as the fundamental life change that it is. She seemed very proud. 

At the end of our time at Kiñe, Aldo took us in his truck to meet a tour bus so we could continue on with our journey. We would meet with the tour bus and go sightseeing to Cerro Payun and its surrounding landscape. 

Once again, we drove through the middle of nowhere, to a house seemingly in the middle of nowhere, to wait for hours in the middle of nowhere, for a tour bus that was hours late. While we travelled with Aldo, he explained that the water that came from spring and fed the house was potable and that they also used it for generating electricity.

Aldo didn’t seem too concerned about the bus picking us up and went to have yerba mate with the home owners. Chris didn’t want to sit around and wait for the bus, so he went for a walk. I was not at all confident that when the bus came, it would stop and ask for us. I sat outside waiting for the tour bus, on a beautiful sunny morning, laying on a rock wall, trying to relax but alert for any sound. The bus showed up about 2 hours late, the driver opened the door and the tour guide came running out, yelling at me to get on the bus because they were running late.

I explained that my husband was also coming and we had suitcases, too! The guide seemed quite angry about the suitcases and the bus didn’t have any interior space for our suitcases. The driver flung our suitcases on the roof then had to go up to tie down the suitcases, then he loaded us onto the small but full tour bus with 15 other people, and we roared off to the next adventure. It was a dramatic change from our previous days of tranquility, isolation, and expanse. We immediately changed to frenetic energy in a cramped bus with a tour guide narrating the scenery.

We took a tour of the Payuna reserve and its black barren landscapes with short, yellow-green grasses around the volcanoes. We had a lot of time and as a group we hiked up two of the volcanos. I couldn’t tell you which volcanoes we hiked up. We have many pictures, but in those days we took pictures with digital cameras. The cameras had GPS, but it quickly drained the battery and, as I’ve said, we were in the middle of nowhere. In any case, the geography in the area is fascinating.

One of the largest volcanoes in the area is Payún Matrú. It is a shield volcano, formed about 168,000 years ago, and its activity stopped just over 500 years ago. Its name means “bearded goat” in the local dialect. This shield volcano is just over 2 km high and covers about 5200 sq km of land with lava. The caldera itself is a massive 7 to 8 km across and 480m deep. 

A shield volcano is a volcano that has a low profile and looks like a shield laying on the ground. These types of volcanoes form because their lava is highly viscous, or very liquidy, so the lava flows further. The largest active shield volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa. The largest one in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. As a fun fact, Olympus Mons is 2.5 times the elevation of Mount Everest from sea level. Olympus Mons is tied with an impact crater on the Vesta asteroid as the highest mountain in the solar system. Payún Matrú has one of the longest lava flows on Earth in our modern geologic era at about 100 km and its lava flow is comparable to the longest flows on Mars. 

It was really special to be in this area. At one volcano, we walked up to the opening of the caldera, sat on its edge and looked into the chasm. It was really windy and the guide told us not to go too close to the edge! At the other volcano, we hiked up part of it and looked back at the tiny bus and tiny people below. It was a rather active tour with multiple stops, getting off and onto the bus. 

The bus itself was a weird little experience. Everyone wore their coats in the bus because the air conditioning was so powerfully cold. We asked the guide to turn it down, but it always managed to come back on full force. At the end of the tour as we were on our way back to Malargüe, it started raining. Our suitcases were on the roof of the bus, getting wet. We reminded the guide that our suitcases were outside. Being the cheery soul he was, he begrudgingly stopped the bus, got our suitcases down, and put them in the centre row of the bus. The bus really didn’t have any extra space!

Eventually we made it back to Malargüe, stayed one night, then took the bus to Mendoza, where we investigated the activities and signed up for a half day white water rafting trip for one day and a “bikes and wine” trip for another day.

In true Argentine style, and much to my consternation, the half day trip took a full day. We were picked up relatively on time, met other tourists on the bus, and drove to the mountains. The rafting guide was a young man from Vancouver who was living in Argentina to learn Spanish. 

We had the full experience of putting on the gear complete with helmet and PFD, learning how to paddle in the raft, how to stay in the raft during the bumpy ride, and what to do if we fell out. I’m sure the guides did most of the work steering the raft, but they made it fun, yelling over the rush of the rapids on when to paddle and brace ourselves. 

We finished the rafting at 12:30pm. Lunch was part of the tour package and we were offered a burger and bun with some salsa golf and nothing else. It wasn’t very appetizing, and we couldn’t buy more food! Everyone was done with rafting and lunch by about 1:30 and then we waited until 4pm. Why? The van didn’t leave until 4pm because the drivers wouldn’t drive back during siesta time. 

We waited around for 2.5 hours, chatting with each other, feeling hungry, and watched the four drivers play pool and ping pong. The siesta tradition seemed so inefficient! The drivers could have taken us back at 1:30 then had the rest of the day off, but instead they played ping pong while we glared at them from the sidelines.

Our guide books recommended Bikes And Wines, a company that offered wine country tours with a bike rental. Their advertising and website looked good enough and they listed a lot of things included with the price: gatorade or water, panniers, a guided tour in Spanish or English, lunch, a cruiser or mountain bike rental, a helmet, reservations at wineries that had “exclusive bike parking.” We purchased a tour and paid extra for the hotel transfer to and from the bike rental. 

We were ready at 9:30 for our ride. At 10:15, the ride still hadn’t arrived. We asked our hotel reception to call the tour company and our ride came 20 minutes later. We were pretty sure they forgot about us! We arrived at the bike rental place and found rusted and old bikes, with terrible seats and broken pedals. As for the rest of the “features” of the tour…

When a gatorade or water was not offered, we asked for it. It was a relatively hot day and we needed it! When a pannier was not offered, we asked for it. We needed it to carry around any wine we purchased! When a guide was not offered, we asked for it! They handed us a small piece of paper with a map. Not only did they not have a person as a guide, they didn’t want to give us the map, which we needed! 

When we asked about lunch, they pointed to the map to show us which winery to eat at. They told us it cost 35 pesos. We asked why we had to pay for lunch when we’d already paid 110 pesos and lunch was included. They told us we didn’t pay for lunch, and we said yes, we did. They said ok, and gave us a lunch voucher to use at said winery. At this point, we doubted that we had a reservation for lunch and we decided not to ask about the helmet.

We set off to the first winery and our bike problems set in within 250m of the shop. We couldn’t get the seat on one of the bikes to stay in place. We managed to tighten the bolt to keep it in place. Then I noticed that my pedal was broken. It was still usable and we didn’t go back to return the bike, but we should have. The pedal got progressively worse throughout the ride! My seat painfully pressed into my crotch but I figured I could make it through the ride. Chris had the pannier on his bike and had to ride with his heels on his pedals instead of the balls of his feet on the pedals, otherwise his feet would hit the panniers. 

At one winery, we had a nice tour walking through the casks and tasting wine. Our lunch was a quarter head of lettuce and a piece of steak. It took about 45 minutes for the meal to arrive and the meat was overcooked and tough. At the third winery, they asked us to pay 15 pesos per person for the tastings, which we declined.

The fourth and final winery, Vino de la Cera, redeemed the whole trip. It was small, friendly, the host spoke Spanish to us even though he was fluent in English. We chatted with him while we tasted wine, got a little bit tipsy, and left with two bottles in our pannier. Our final stop was a chocolate shop where we bought some chocolate (of course). We cycled back to the start, dropped off the bikes, and sat on bean bags nursing our sore bodies while waiting for our hotel transfer. Except for the terrible bikes, the lack of a guide, and the disappointing lunch, we had a great time.

This was the end of our adventure in Mendoza and Argentina. The next day we took a bus to Santiago, Chile. All together, this part of the trip was more engaging than the first part in Buenos Aires, Bariloche, and Junin de los Andes. Perhaps we had gotten more comfortable with things never being on time. The Argentine approach to life wore us down, or maybe it rubbed off on us. I recently learned that Greece did away with its siesta culture and saw a rise in heart disease as people stopped taking that mid-day break. I’m sure the siesta is helpful to many cultures, especially in hot climates and for outdoor workers. If I could do it all over again, I’d probably relax a little bit more, enjoy the siesta time, and come prepared with more snacks and some medicinal chocolate.