Wine Tasting
Lunch
Lunch
Aconcagua
Inca Bridge
Puente del Inca (
Spanish "The Inca Bridge"), is a
natural arch that forms a bridge over the Vacas River, a tributary of the
Mendoza River. It is located in
Mendoza Province,
Argentina, near
Las Cuevas.
Puente del Inca is also the name of the nearby
hot springs. Scientists speculate that interaction of extreme elements like ice and hot springs was involved in the origin of the formation. They suppose that in ancient times ice covered the river and acted as support for avalanches of snow, dust and rocks. So the dust over the ice over the river would have served as a path for the sulfurous water and
petrified the surface, so when the snow melted, the bridge remained by itself.
[citation needed]
In March 1835,
Charles Darwin visited the site, and made some drawings of the bridge with large stalactites.
In the early 20th century there was a large thermal resort and
spa that used the hot springs to cure certain illnesses (a spa still survives further down the river at
Cacheuta). There was a railway station, which is still standing, and tourists arrived by train to the resort. This was one of the last Argentine stations of the
Transandine Railway before the train continued into Chile, traveling through a long tunnel under the Andes.
Aconcagua
Aconcagua (
Spanish pronunciation: [akoŋˈkaɣwa]) is the
highest mountain outside Asia, at 6,961 metres (22,838 ft), and by extension the highest point in both the
Western Hemisphere and the
Southern Hemisphere.
[1] It is located in the
Andes mountain range, in the
Mendoza Province,
Argentina, and lies 112 kilometres (70 mi) northwest of its capital, the
city of Mendoza. The summit is also located about 5 kilometers from
San Juan Province and 15 kilometers from the international border with
Chile. The mountain itself lies entirely within Argentina and immediately east of Argentina's border with Chile.
[3] Its nearest higher neighbor is
Tirich Mir in the
Hindu Kush, 16,520 kilometres (10,270 mi) away. It is one of the
Seven Summits.
Aconcagua is bounded by the
Valle de las Vacas to the north and east and the
Valle de los Horcones Inferior to the west and south. The mountain and its surroundings are part of the
Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of
glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about 10 kilometers long, which descends from the south face to about 3600 meters in altitude near the Confluencia camp.
[4] Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about 5 kilometers long. The most well-known is the north-eastern or
Polish Glacier, as it is a common route of ascent.
