A tribute to the awesome powers of tectonic plates

I'd like to take some time now to write about the Andes. It will probably end up taking quite a while since all the wine and barbecue from last night has left me in a state of slight brain paralysis and malfunctioning hand-eye coordination. My stomach is also at war against everything trying to sneak in for rescue.




But the Andes! They have turned my love for mountains into an obsession. There is no way I could go on with my life without coming back here one day to explore the wonders of the southern Andes. I must, some day, visit Patagonia, hopefully on a bike via the pan american highway, those interested are welcome to join, but expect stopping at every single quirky rock formation and also be ready to go to awesome lenghts to reach the perfect viewpoints of awe.

What is so special about the Andes then? Thats something I'll try my hardest to explain, but there's really no way to explain the beauty of something unimaginable in words, since words are only hints and when put together will form a picture totally distorted to the unseen eye. So to know for real you should visit, and visit you should.

These so called mountains are not really mountains but giant teeth of rock sticking up from the flat and arid deserts around it. Rather than growing gradually from highlands and hills, they just kind of go up like crubling skyscrapers of wicked heights, or like a sloppy row of dominoes that have been standing there for an eternity, some still standing, resisting to fall, yet crumbling under their own weight.

Naturally, the ride from Mendoza to Santiago left my neck numb from trying to take a peak of the peaks of mountains literally leaning towards the snaking road, I also dislocated my jaw when turning here and there trying to eat in all the colours of rock and sand with a somewhat dumbfound expression on my face. It's amazing, the colours and the rough forms that are all there to see for your eyes. This is due to the fact that the mountains dont actually get much rain where there could otherwise be vegetation so nothing is hiding these masterpieces of green, red, white, blue and every other mineral colour. Vegetation only excists in the gravel that has fallen of to form piles of sand at the roots of these gigantic faces of rock. Not much can grow on the mountains themselves since every face is steeper than the other, so steep in fact that they can't hold snow.

I don't know what I can say. Nature scares the crap out of me now. I got to say young Niklas had it right when he couldn't sleep due to worries conserning the tectonic plates.

Location:Santiago, Chile