Mendoza february 6 - 9/2011

---

Mendoza

It takes us about 23 hours by bus from Puerto Madryn to Mendoza. After 6 hours the landscape begins to change. The dry steppe of Patagonia disappears finally and we see more and more trees, rivers, villages and agriculture instead. When the night falls we try to sleep in our comfortable chairs. The buscompany is excellent (Andesmar). Next morning we are still driving and the landscape is still the same. Several hours before we arrive at Mendoza we see the first vineyards. The Mendoza province is famous for its wine with Malbec as most important grape.

'I know only one Dutch word', says the woman in the wineshop. 'Niet te geloven'. Unbelievable. 'Where did you learn that', I ask. 'It was during the worldcup final in Buenos Aires in 1978' (A painfull moment in the collective memory of the Dutch, we lost from Argentina). 'The Dutch said it all the time'. Her wineshop is not far from the Plaza Independencia, one of the big squares in Mendoza, which were made together with the wide avenues after an earthquake destroyed big parts of the city. Everywhere are beautiful trees. 'But last worldcup we were on the Dutch hand', the woman continues with a smile. 'Not on the Spanish side. We like the Dutch.' Of course we leave her shop with a delicious red Malbec wine. Made in Mendoza.

Apart from some hospitals we do not see so much of Mendoza. I have problems with my ear and in the public hospitals they cannot not cure it. Public hospitals are free, but they hardly have equipment. Finally I went to a privat clinic and the problem was solved in some minutes. Over a week we will return to Mendoza (not to our hostel Campo Base, with its cramped rooms). Now we will go to Santiago de Chili, to pick up my son at the airport.

---