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| The view of the Andes from a rooftop terrace in Mendoza. |
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| Mendoza's Iconic Plaza de Independcia at Night |
Through a lucky connection (the cousin of one of Matt's coworkers) we managed to get in touch with an extensive network of shared student houses in Mendoza, Argentina. So we packed our bags and left Chile for the first time- just a short hop across the Andes. The flight (only about an hour long) had some very nice views.
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| Apparently we missed the best mountain of all - Aconcagua, the highest mountain of the Americas. But this one was pretty striking. |
Our time in Mendoza has been an interesting mosaic of activities. Matt is working remotely, but the wifi in our AirBnB is unexpectedly broken, so we spend each morning working in a cafe nearby. It turns out the people of Mendoza LOVE Coldplay. Without fail, their music followed us from cafe to cafe, sometimes on a loop of their top 5 hits, and even sent us off back to Santiago from the airport.
Soon after lunch, we put away the laptops and take out our notebooks and hit the shared houses to do some interviews. And when we have a chance, we've been trying to get out to do some of the classic Mendoza tourist activities: wine tasting and grilled meat, mostly, plus a walking tour and hot springs. We also met up a few times with the nephew of one of Karen's Argentinian friends. All of this means we've been exposed to a pretty varied swathe of Mendoza culture. This is what we've learned:
Mendoza is a desert. The Andes prevent all the moist air from the Pacific from reaching the region. To combat the dry air and to provide shade throughout the city, when Mendoza was rebuilt after a major earthquake, they planted a massive amount of trees along all of the streets. How do you maintain so much greenery in the desert? Good question. Mendoza has an extensive and complicated series of canals that irrigate the entire city- there are ditches running alongside every street.
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| If you look closely, you can see an irrigation canal running through the grass in this photo- these are ubiquitous in Mendoza, so you always have to watch you step! |
Mendoza gets a tiny amount of rain each year, and it pretty much all arrived this week, during about 2 days of steady drizzle. In the wake of such a "storm" the cafes around our AirBnB were all experiencing difficulties with their electricity. In one cafe, the outlet wasn't working. The waitress insisted on pulling aside an entire bench to expose another outlet- but when she plugged in our charger, smoke and sparks started shooting out. So she let us use the outlet behind the cash register to charge our laptops. Later, at dinner at a nice steak restaurant, the power went out every 15 minutes or so.
There is a pretty serious economic crisis affecting Argentina right now- we're told that unemployment is high, inflation is rampant, and there is very little optimism about the upcoming election. And yet, Mendoza has a thriving cafe scene, and the cafes, restaurants, and bars are all packed every evening.
Like the rest of South America, Argentina stays up late. Someone we interviewed suggested meeting at 9PM, so we assumed that meant after dinner. But that evening, he sent a message asking where we would like to eat- after our initial confusion we realized he wanted to get dinner AT 9PM. Another day, we were invited later to a dinner at a shared student house, beginning at 8pm. A student studying to be a chef prepared a mountain of delicious empanadas, but they were served at 12:30AM.
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| Homemade Midnight Empanadas |
Some scenes from out and about Mendoza:
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| Stained Glass Roof - found in a touristic area downtown |
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| Cultural Center- featured a photo exhibition inside |
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| Treetrunk Bench |
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| Lake at Mendoza's Parque San MartÃn- the lake is connected to a yacht club and we saw several kayakers doing laps in the water... no big boats though! |
At the aforementioned cafes:
Parrillada Steak with a family friend's nephew:
We ate at an all-you-can-eat buffet venue, that included live music.
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| Squint to the background for a glimpse of our live evening entertainment! |
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| A classy microwave |
Some scenes from vineyards:
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| The Vistalba underground tasting room boasts a wall that exposes the Earth around it, to serve as a beautiful and educational illustration of how the environment affects vine growth. |
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| A tumbleweed lamp, inspired by Mendoza's desert environment |
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| A vintage wine barrel in Bodega Lopez's museum of wine machinery |
