Grapes, poplars, and peaks: long weekend in Mendoza

This time, we said, we were going to get the bus seats that lie all the way flat. No more of this partial-angle stuff for us. For the 14-hour trip to Mendoza, we were going to sleep at least half the time.



Oops. Otra manera de viajar indeed. We got seats called "cama" (bed) that were not in fact flat, then spent a good chunk of our time in Mendoza trying to fix that for the return trip -- quite a Spanish challenge. Still, by most measures, the trip was comfortable.


The critical difference

And inspired by our friends Blake and Rebecca, we got the seats up top and in front, with a window all the way across. (This proved a little harrowing on the way back when it turned out that the other bus company shaves an hour off its trip time by having its drivers stay in the passing lane, but that's another story.)


View from the front-row seats

Mendoza is the city at the center of Argentina's wine country, and people in Buenos Aires have told me it is "very clean." Porteños don't quite seem to mean it as a compliment, but it's true, and we found it extremely pleasant. The city's streets are wide, and more importantly to me, so are the sidewalks. (Buenos Aires has lots and lots of pedestrians, which is great, but most of the sidewalks are very narrow, and stepping into the street is a dangerous choice to make.) Best of all, the streets are lined with tall beautiful trees, mostly plane trees.

To us, Mendoza had some of the bustle of a city (except at siesta time, which they seem to take very seriously -- stores close from 1 pm to either 4 or 5!) and also enough room to stroll.


Mendocinos also take Sundays seriously. Most other days I probably couldn't have stood in the intersection to take this photo.


The city is extremely planned in a way that really works -- it doesn't feel fake, but again, very pleasant. It was more or less leveled by an earthquake in 1861, and was rebuilt with stronger buildings, wide streets and sidewalks, and many sizable plazas to provide places for people to go in an earthquake. It has many lovely old buildings, too, like this bank with an Argentine flag draped casually across its front.



We seem not to have taken any photos of this, but Mendoza has a very interesting system of waterways alongside the sidewalks, very much like in parts of Salt Lake City and other areas of Utah. These waterways are part of an ancient, pre-Spanish irrigation system that brings water from the snowmelt of the nearby Andes to Mendoza, allowing trees to grow in a place that would otherwise be far too dry.



Taking advantage of the pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly ethos of the town, we woke up early our second day to do a bike tour among wineries. And fortunately, after a grey and cold first day there, the sun came out.


Separated bike lanes


This was probably our favorite part of the whole visit -- cycling down poplar-lined streets

As we biked through Maipú from one winery to another, I looked up at the poplars and saw what I thought were enormous raptor nests. But no, there was an unmistakable noise emanating from them that no raptor would make: squawking. Instead, the nests were giant communal parrot apartments!

For our whole visit, with the fog and sun and dry air and wine and so on, Mendoza reminded us powerfully of California -- but the parrots and their nests reminded us that no, we're on the other side of the world.


Parrots in the poplars!

The wineries, and the Museo del Vino, had lots of cool old machines for us to inspect.






A bottle washer






Some slightly horrifying old wine containers... this section was from the 1500s, they said. Maybe just replicas, not sure. Next to these containers was an ENORMOUS hide stretched across a frame, from which wine would drain from some sort of probably natural hole in the hide -- it seemed too big to be a cow, but what else could it be? Perhaps were there Spanish elephant tamers and winemakers? Mysterious.


Planes -- a picture pretty much entirely for my dad






Grapes being picked over at a very small winery


The leavings of a bigger winery -- skin, seeds, and stems -- crushed and remarkably dry

And of course we sampled the wares. Yum.





We also visited an olive orchard and oil-making company.




A pity you can't pick them and eat them -- don't they look good?


We think this was used to create olive oil -- now it's more of a landscaping feature -- can't see anyone wanting to move it.


An old machine to smash the olives -- don't let our guide's strong thumb fool you -- they're heavy!


The somewhat more modern olive-smashing machinery


And oil refining technology

All these machines add up to some very nice products:




One of the best veggie lasagnas I've ever had -- light like quiche

But Mendoza is not only known for wine. And olive oil. And good food. It is also known for being near Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western hemisphere (at 6962 meters or 22,840 feet). Aconcagua is a very serious thing to undertake climbing, but we took a little tour up into the surrounding mountains with a bunch of vacationing Argentines (which made for great Spanish practice).


The reservoir that holds Mendoza's drinking water

En route, we visited a little bridge at Picheuta built in 1770 along part of the Inca Trail. Here, in 1817, General San Martin and his men fought the first battle against the Spanish. We think.






A plaque dedicated to the General in a park back in Mendoza -- rub the Liberator's nose for good luck!



The Upsallata Valley is beautiful and incredibly dry, with rock that is colored red and white and yellow and purple -- clear indications of its volcanic origins. Sometimes it reminded us of Haleakala, sometimes Utah.





Seven Years in Tibet was filmed here, and it makes sense. Many parts were reminiscent of Ladakh -- especially when driving up and down this rather hairy switchback-y road.


I find these sorts of trips less alarming after India... but still kind of alarming

This twisting road leads to the border with Chile, and before that, to a big statue of "Cristo Redentor" that has a twin in Chile; Argentina and Chile erected them to celebrate having ironed out a border dispute. One would think there would be a lot more than two of these.

The statue wasn't too interesting, but the views were. It was very cold, too, as we were (suddenly) at 12,000 feet!



We descended from this high point to visit the Puente del Inca, a brightly colored natural bridge, site of a hot spring and an abandoned hotel.


Puente del Inca

Apparently the Puente, or bridge, formed from seepage from the spring -- largely sulfur, as you can see -- and the river eroded it away beneath. They say the Incas used this bridge to cross the river and may also have used the water for its curative powers.

It was incredibly cold here, with a howling wind. The hot springs, though off-limits now, seemed quite inviting. Then again, it wasn't a big surprise that after a rock slide, the hotel had been abandoned.

Many people here were selling Andean crafts -- llama sweaters and hats and so on -- and we felt as if we had suddenly crossed into a whole different region, one more like Peru or Ecuador than Mendoza or Buenos Aires. Our driver even had coca tea at lunch -- another northern Andean touch.


Coca leaves -- to aid the digestion at altitude, we were told

Our lunch stop was a bit of a change from the wonders of Mendoza cuisine. The offerings were strikingly ample and strikingly monochromatic.


Yup, those are mashed potatoes on the rice. And they were good.


You can't see Aconcagua very well here but we are clearly shorter than it is

We stopped at a view of the second-highest peak, Tupungato, which our guide said was 6,800 meters but Wikipedia says is a mere 6,570 meters, or about 21,500 feet. Its name means mirador de estrellas, or loosely translated, Star View.


A better view of Tupungato


An appealing sentiment

And we got to see mighty Aconcagua. (Sentinel of Stone)


The tallest mountain outside of Asia

After more walks, more wine tastings, and more chats with the friendly staff of our hostel -- a real high point for my Spanish practice (although I'm convinced that it's their company policy to tell everyone their Spanish is good) -- we left Mendoza on another night bus. This time it was in seats as flat as they go, hooray!



And now we're settling back into life in Buenos Aires -- starting with a morning cup of mate.



(Post by Elizabeth)