Tales of Travel: Mendoza

From Santa Cruz, we stopped off in Santiago for two nights before heading back into Argentina again. We managed to find some pretty cheap flights from to Mendoza, so instead of a 7-hour bus ride, we enjoyed a 50-minute flight directly over the Andes – and it definitely was worth it for the views of the mountains.

Flying over the Andes

We had high hopes for Mendoza, and certainly weren’t disappointed. For a city with a population of about one million, it had a relaxed, small town feel to it that was a nice surprise. Most Mendocinos enjoy a long siesta in the afternoon, which means the streets are virtually deserted from 1-6pm. It appeared that only crazy gringos venture out at that time of day.

We spent a hot afternoon wandering to and around Parque General San Martin, a huge inner-city park that is home to a stadium, a school, a pool, a zoo, tennis courts and a golf course, a lake and an observatory. After a couple of hours we’d only covered a third of the area! It was a popular place for families to picnic, and we spent time lazing on the grass, listening to the far-off sounds of the city mingling with birdsong.

Parque General San Martin

Of an evening, we wandered to the Christmas markets, and listened to buskers. There are four main squares in Mendoza, each decorated and tiled in a different way, so we had fun navigating our way to each corner.

A tiled square

We chose to go on an organised wine tour due to the sheer number of wineries in the area – doing it ourselves seemed too much a daunting task! Our tour had 14 people on it…and half of them (us?) were kiwis! The first winery had Aconcagua (the highest peak in the Andes) as its backdrop, but the wine was unfortunately not the best. The next was an organic winery which had been operating for 50 or so years, and while the wine was just okay, it was really interesting to hear how they use fruit trees to attract the birds and insects, olive trees as a natural barrier, and how all of the harvest gets used – from wine to compost. The third winery was smaller again, and was the only place we got to try a malbec which we found quite strange, considering Mendoza is famous for this variety!

Cecchin Organic Winery

We finished with lunch at Cava de Cano. When we walked in, everyone’s jaws dropped – the table was heaving with food, and our guide said, “Take it easy, this is only the starter…”. The food was amazing (served tapas-style, with an array of traditional and local dishes) and seemed never-ending, and the wine flowed. Needless to say, it was a very quiet bus trip back as everyone nursed full bellies and the beginnings of wine headaches (not me, obviously).

The starters!

Tall was satisfied after finally going to a football match in South America – a local Mendoza team played a visiting team from Buenos Aires and he said the atmosphere was brilliant, despite the end result being a draw.

Mendoza certainly lived up to our high expectations, and was a great place to finish our visit to Argentina.

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