Mendoza

top: cars lined up at the Argentina-Chile border high in the Andes

second: Plaza España in Mendoza

third: skyline of Mendoza

bottom: sign at Chilean side of the border


Two weeks ago, I went on a spur-of-the-moment trip with two friends to Mendoza, Argentina. It is medium-sized city (smaller than Louisville but larger than Lexington, I would say) on the opposite side of the Andes from Santiago. Mendoza is in the middle of Argentina's wine country. It also lies in the rain shadow of the Andes, which means that it is in the middle of a desert. You wouldn't realize this, however, because the wide boulevards are shaded by enormous sycamore trees. They are watered by small canals which line the sides of the streets. In any other city these canals would quickly be filled with trash and maybe sewage, but Mendoza was impeccably clean.

Argentina is synonymous with quality beef, and I ordered a steak on the first night. It was really good, but I think the steak I ate here in Santiago on one of my first nights was slightly better. The accompanying wine (a Malbec, one of my new favorites) was local and very good. All this plus dessert ended up costing about $10. It is shocking how much cheaper Argentina is compared to Chile.

Another nice thing about Mendoza was that every square in the town was filled with artesans selling their wares. They set up shop on the weekends and stay until well after dark. You could buy everything from leather goods, wine, mate gourds, chess sets, and jewelry. Bargaining is a must, of course.

I wanted to do a "bikes-and-wines" tour, but the only fully free day I had was Sunday, and the tour was not given then. Shame. But on second thought, trying to ride a bicycle from vineyard to vineyard AND getting free samples at each stop might have proven to be a bit dangerous and difficult. Especially since they're not stiff on the free samples here.

As the crow flies, Mendoza is probably a little more than 100 miles from Santiago, but since one must drive through the lone pass in the area through the Andes, the trip takes about 8 hours each way (this includes waits at the border, which were abnormally long due to the apparent exodus of the entire upper class of Santiago in their own cars for the long weekend; I saw one of those new Jeep Commanders and if neither money nor concern for gas mileage/the environment were concerns, I'd definitely "get me wunna'them"). The actual border is crossed via a 2km long tunnel at an altitude of roughly 10,400ft. The Chilean side is accessed by a series of switchbacks going up the mountains, all without guardrails. I was a little nervous as the huge bus I was on took up every inch of pavement as it rounded the corners. On the Argentine side the landscape quickly goes from snowy-white to desert-brown as you enter the rain shadow zone.

I got a kick out of the last sign on the road as you leave Argentina. Instead of something along the lines of "Gracias por su visita - República Argentina", it reads: "¡Islas Malvinas son argentinas!" ("The Islas Malvinas belong to Argentina!"). If that doesn't make sense to you, think of a war fought in 1982 between Argentina (which lost) and the UK over two tiny specks in the South Atlantic called the Falkland Islands. I hope an Argentine never reads this; they'll kill me.