2011-11 Potrerillos Zip Line and Kayak Adventure

We set out for Potrerillos on Thursday morning for a day of zip lining and kayaking.  We rode a van with about 10 other people staying at various hotels throughout the city.  Potrerillos is a reservoir about an hour outside of Mendoza.  It provides drinking water to Mendoza, and no motorized boats are allowed on the reservoir.  they did hold world wind surfing championships on the lake in the past.  It is in a valley of the youngest mountains of the Andes range.  There are the young mountains, the Silver mountains and the blue mountains.  Because of the cloud cover, we only got glimpses of the tallest, snow covered blue mountains.

Once we got to the Rafting Argentina trail head, we met up with our guide Lucio, for the morning adventure of flat water kayaking on Lake Potrerillos.  We decided to do the flat water kayaking rather than the white water kayaking or rafting.   Rafting Argentina provides full wet suits, booties, helmets and life jackets.  Although this lake is from mountain runoff, it had already warmed up quite a bit.  The lake color was a light blue green and reminded us of the color of many oceans. 


We took a short bus ride to the edge of the lake were we put the kayaks in and started paddling across the lake.  LeAnn and I were in one kayak and Mariah was in one by herself.  After crossing the lake, we drifted a little with the wind and came close the river opening into the lake.  The river water is very brown in color, but the sediment must drop out very quickly as the lake color takes over very quickly.

We then turned into the wind and cut through some larger waves going back to the middle of the lake.  This was the hardest paddling, but then as we paddled back, we almost surfed on some of the waves as we had the wind at our back.

Safe and sound back on shore we headed up to the trailhead and had lunch in the restaurant, which was a choice of beef, chicken or pork, and hardy helpings at that.  No wine with this lunch though as we still had our zip lining to come.

A total of 8 people were on the zip line adventure, along with 3 guides.  Seven of us were from the states and one was a Argentine local.  We got our equipment fitted and put one before heading up the trail to the first run where we got instructions on how to control our speed and body on the line.  Mariah got volunteered to go first, probably since she was the youngest.  Off she went without a hitch and the rest of us followed one by one.

There were a total of 6 zip lines with a total distance of just under a mile.  The last 2 lines crisscross the Mendoza river and are about 1500 feet long each about 150' above the river.  Because of the wind, I got spun around going across the river the first time.  When you get turned around you are supposed to let go of the cable and grab the line underneath the trolley so that you don't  get your fingers pinched by the trolly on the cable.  When you do this, you loose your ability to slow down.  I was coming in fast and the guides had to bring the speed arrestor out about 30' in order to slow me down and stop me.   Going back I was able to keep myself under cdontrol and made an unassitsed landing.

Mariah was the last to come back, and the guide asked her if she was up to a challenge.  She said yes, so they doubled up coming back across and as they were coming, she leaned back so that she was totally upside down with her head down and legs up.  She was screaming with delight as she made her way back.  Just before getting to the landing ramp, she pulled herself back upright and came in for a smooth landing.

While we were zip lining, one of the people from Rafting Argentina was stationed along the zip lines to take photographs of us as we were on the course.  They then sold us the group of photos at the end of the run (and they were only about $12 for all the photos--a great deal).  I had my camera along also and was able to take a few along the way too.

We completed the course and met back at the trailhead for the ride back to the hotel.  We walked down to La Lucia for dinner and had a lomo sandwich, whcih was a large thin cut steak on a toasted bun.  Like everything here, it was lots of meat and tasted good.