Mendoza

Mendoza

If wasn’t for the pre-Columbian irrigation canals receiving water from the Andes mountains, Mendoza would probably not be in existence. Mendoza is literally a “desert oasis.” There are approximately 130,000 people within the city limits and an additional 850,000 if you include all the different towns and barrios surrounding Mendoza. I include this information because Mendoza has a small city feel. Why are we in Mendoza? Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina. There are roughly 1000 wineries in the Mendoza Province. Our plan is to visit two wineries per day, three days a week. Adjacent to the right is a pic of another protest happening in Argentina. We stayed back a little. The protest was regarding BUSH.

We arrived in Mendoza on May 8^th and we stayed at the Argentino Hotel across from Plaza Independecia and the Park Hyatt (listed in the top 100 hotels in the World by Travel&Leisure). There are so many Americans here! It’s refreshing to talk with other Americans and gives us a break from the Spanish language. Mendoza is a small city; across from our hotel we parked right next to a guy who we met in El Chalten, (he is from Seattle and also sold his house and quit his job and drove down to South America). We actually met a couple from Portland at our hotel. Our first Oregonians! Additionally, we met a couple from the Southern U.S. who have been living outside Buenos Aires with their 1.5 year old boy since January and our now touring Argentina before leaving in 3 weeks. Very nice family. Payton enjoyed playing with their boy, Matheus, at the park across the street from the hotel and we enjoyed drinking wine and vodka tonics together prior to them leaving.

After a couple of days looking for an affordable, long-term apartment we decided to stay in a small suburb outside of Mendoza city, Godoy Cruz. There is definitely a business opportunity and need for someone to have furnished rentals online. We only say 3 different websites with rentals and 2 of the 3 only offered one rental (they were both the owners of the apartment). We are paying 700 USD for a two bedroom 1 bath apartment with secured parking. The only downfall, no internet. Oh well. We will be here for 1 month then get another house outside the city that’s larger and has a big yard.

After being here one week we have experienced some great food and wine. We will compile a list of our favorite wineries at the end of our time in Mendoza. However, we have been to 4 different wineries and one gourmet wine & cheese tasting and have concluded that we will be having a good time here. The only downfall with Mendoza is the minimal mountain bike opportunities. I’ll have to go to a tour company for some ideas.

We visited the local aquarium and reptile museum. Wow! The aquarium looks like it’s part of a local freak show. It’s old and dirty with skeletons, stuffed fish (with eyes and skin falling off and small aquariums with too many fish inside of them. Across the street from the aquarium is a reptile museum. We found that there are a lot of snakes in Argentina; especially in the North. Makes the whole idea of biking alone in the desert a little more exciting.

Later in the week we visited the local zoo, to our surprise we really enjoyed ourselves. We first started walking up a cement path and came across some monkeys (not in cages) grabbing garbage out of the garbage can (one monkey was attempting to drink Coke from a bottle). To our amazement there were 10-15 monkeys in the trees above us jumping from tree to tree. Luckily, no poop was flung at us. Payton loved watching the monkeys and she was thrilled to see the monkey in the garbage can since she still has a fascination with garbage and garbage cans. We continued our adventures and came across some amazing animals. We have never seen zoo animals so animated before. Payton loved watching the animals peeing and pooping. She even fed a Zebra. One of the big differences between the U.S. and here is that you are able to get so close to the animals. Literally we were 6 or less feet away from a Bengal tiger and a lion. Additionally, the lion pen was designed to protect animals from leaving, but not from people from entering or tossing different trash and animals in the pen. We also saw a mountain lion couple attempt to fornicate. The female lion was moaning/yelling very loud and Payton was a little uncomfortable and asking a lot of questions. I don’t think Jen and I are ready to start talking about reproduction yet, Jen attempted but Payton was confused.

We drove to the Argentina-Chile border yesterday. Snow is starting to accumulate on the mountains and on the roadside. We visited Punta del Inca (an abandoned hot springs resort on the side of a mountain overlooking the river 10 meters below). The yellow/orange colors of the structure are from the sulfur in the water. We also did a short hike to take some pictures of Cerro Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. I was supposed to climb this in December, however, that will not be happening now. We took the pictures of Aconcagua at an elevation over 10,000 feet. These mountains are big! We drove through Upsallata, where Brad Pitt’s film ‘Tibet’ was filmed because it was very similar to the picturesque terrain of India.