Mendoza

We finally successfully crossed over into Mendoza, Argentina from Santiago! After the two previous attempts and the finickiness of the border, I just wasn't sure. But we made it and getting through immigration was not as long as I expected it would take. When we left Sucre, instead of heading to Argentina from Bolivia, we went back to La Paz, and took a flight to Santiago, Chile to pick up our snowboarding gear. We stayed the night there and then got on a bus that took us to Mendoza, Argentina in about 7 hours, crossing the border we had tried to cross twice before. After travelling for so long continuously, you always feel a little grimy and need to relax somewhere! Mendoza was the place to do that for us. Marchelo, the friend we made on the Uyuni tour picked us up and we headed to his home, which is about 15 minutes outside of the city. We met his lovely family and had the pleasure of staying in his beautiful home. The day we arrived, his mother made a delicious dinner, served with wine from Mendoza of course and amazing lava cake for desert. They also gave us suggestions for where to go and what to see in Mendoza. His father, who had done a road trip to Ushuaia on his motorcycle, gave us suggestions on what cities to visit and we considered doing a road trip through Patagonia. I was really excited at the possibilities, road trip or no road trip, we both really wanted to go to Patagonia. The four days that we spent in Mendoza were wonderful. Marchelo's family was so hospitable and gracious to us and we felt honoured to have met them and spent time with them.

The evening we arrived, we went for a stroll through the city centre. Mendoza is a very European-looking city, with many beautiful old trees. Although it is an arid place, an irrigation system built throughout the city makes it really green compared to other South American cities. It's along the same lines of latitude as Santiago, but Mendoza is a lot warmer, and has a totally different feel (I think because the mountains in between alters the climate). We walked around the Plaza Independencia, the central plaza and the following two days we walked around the city checking out the other four large squares surrounding Plaza Independencia: Chile, Spain, Italy and San Martin, and splurged a little at an asado restaurant with a buffet. When in Argentina, you have to try asado or barbeque! The meat is so delicious here and although everyone says it, you have to try it to understand how good it really is.

You can't leave Mendoza without visiting wineries! We have already been to multiple wineries in Kelowna, B.C and in the Niagara Region so we decided to do just one wine tour. The tour took us to a really large winery that sells their wine mainly in Argentina. Our tour guide there turned out to be a girl from Toronto whose family had moved back to Mendoza. I was thinking the same thing. In Mendoza, you have warm weather, really good food and the mountains nearby. You can't beat that! The second winery was a very small one that made wine in a more traditional way and the final stop was at at an olive oil factory. A wineries tour always makes me a little sleepy, tasting wine and then sitting on a bus that lulls you to sleep on your way to the next stop.

We plan to return to Mendoza after our Patagonia trip and maybe come back to do some snowboarding next July before we head back to Canada. Something special about this trip is that we are making friends in the many places we visit. We have friends in Argentina now and I hope that they know that they have friends in Canada!