Los Flores

21 November 2025

We decided that we will be on the road at 9 am today. We have had to alter our itinerary, to be able to catch up the extra day that we had lost due to Bike maintenance. This involved a straight 360 km slug up Route 40 and then diverting onto route 149 towards the Chilean border to a town called Los Flores.

After filling up with gas, we exited the city and got onto the single track Road heading north. 160 km north is the city of San Luis. And we stopped to get here to splash the tanks, and take a coffee. We then headed out of town on a Northwest trajectory, and headed back into the foothills of the Anies as we turned onto Route 149. The temperature in Mendoza for the last few days has been 30 degrees plus. We were dressed for the summer sun and we’re not ready when route 149 suddenly started climbing into the Andy’s. When we reached 2600 m above sea level the temperature Dropped By approximately 15 and we had to stop empty our panniers and find warmer clothes.

We got into the tiny town of Los Flores, at around 2 pm and found ourselves 6 km from the hotel.. So we splashed again the tanks to make sure we had a full start tomorrow, and as we were leaving the gas station, we spotted a small bar on our right hand side and decided a beer was in order.

It turned out that it was also going to be a lunch stop because it was who obviously knew more about it than we did. We set had a steak with fries and salad and a beer each. We then headed the final 6 km to what can I need to be described as a beautiful hotel situated in a location that doesn’t warrant a hotel ever being built. We have no idea why it is here, but we are very glad that it is. We both think it smells of Chinese money again but we have no proof of that.

There were also some great sofas , that when you moved on them made incredible farting sounds, which amused Tim and I for quite a while