Puente del Inca

Puente del Inca during month of July.

Puente del Inca (Spanish "The Inca's 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.

In March 1835, Charles Darwin visited this natural marvel, and made some drawings of the bridge with great stalactites.

In the early twentieth century there was a big thermal resort and Spa that used the hot springs to cure some illnesses (a spa still survives further down the river at Cacheuta). There was a train station that is still standing there, 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.

Puente del Inca Panorama

The abandoned train station has been turned into a mountaineering museum (the "Museo del Andinista"), founded by a group of mountain climbers from the Argentine province of Rosario to display the cultural history of the Aconcagua area. The museum is open to the public during the summer and is run by the founding group of friends.

Climate

Situated at 2,740 m (8,990 ft) above sea level, Puente del Inca has a cold semi-arid climate (BSk, according to the Köppen climate classification), with moderate summers and snowy winters.

Puente del Inca
Climate chart (explanation)
J F M A M J J A S O N D     2   20 6     2   20 6     5   19 4     11   15 1     89   9 −2     90   5 −6     50   5 −5     38   8 −3     17   9 −2     27   11 −1     9   16 3     2   18 5 Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation totals in mm Source: Climate and Temperature Information
Imperial conversion J F M A M J J A S O N D     0.1   68 43     0.1   68 43     0.2   66 39     0.4   59 34     3.5   48 28     3.5   41 21     2   41 23     1.5   46 27     0.7   48 28     1.1   52 30     0.4   61 37     0.1   64 41 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation totals in inches

External links

• argentinastravel.com: Puente del Inca in Mendoza, Argentina