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Published: July 21st 2008
With a day time bus trip on offer, the chance to rest the feet and tune into some spanish lessons was anticipated. But with the impending (and very imposing Andes) beckoning from the distance, there was no way any Spanish was going to be done. The feet rested while the neck struggled to ensure the views were throughly appreciated. *Gradually decreasing agricultural activity as the altitude ascended.
*A town with equal numbers of parked cars and horse drawn carts (with car tyres)
*Hitting an Alpe d”Huez style switchback assault up to the Andean pass
*Through a ski field, with two skiers peering into the bus window as the bus passed under the chair lift. The road kept going up.
*Through customs (Arlene’s first land border crossing). A formality only - the bus drivers assistant came down the line with plastic cup to collect tips, presumably for the extra effort of offloading bags to be checked by customs. They were neither offloaded nor checked, leaving us wondering what we were tipping for. At least our pockets were lighter of Chilean coinage.
*Bruce Willis: Die Hard 4.0, with spanish subtitles - at last we got to do some Spanish. (Vamos: let’s go. Dios
Me: O My God. Esta Bien: OK. Diablos: Shit).
With such an impressive bus trip, we were thoroughly unprepared for being so underwhelmed by Argentina/ Mendoza.
- The promised post economic crisis producing cheap tourist haven is perhaps not a reality. Our hostel prices rival ‘expensive’ Chile.
- The high priests of the advertising world reserving their prolific worship to that which is exclusively fair skinned and feminine.
- The architecture is almost entirely stuck in 20th century no-mans land, despite Mendoza being established in 1560’s.
- The shiny supermarket sells Kellogs All Bran.
So what we found was remarkably similar to home. None of the aged and quaint grandiosity we had been treated with so far.
Our dissapointment lasted until we hit the museums, to find the city had been levelled by an earthquake in the late 1800’s, and the rebuilding had instead focussed on making a lively environment to actually live in.
*Forget the buildings, and look at the streets: wide, spacious footpaths, gorgeously established trees lining every road, hanging tenaciously to their dead winter leaves. This would have been jaw dropping in Autumn.
*The arid space adjacent the city had been morphed into an enormous park
by a cunningly simple irrigation system. 50,000 trees, a lake, food, Argentines drawn to walk/cycle/run/roller blade, impressive front gates (made in Scotland), and of course the mind blowing monument to Chile’s independence from Spain as the crowning piece atop this massive park. We spent most of the day just enjoying getting up and back down.
*A day spent cruising Mendoza’s grape and vineyard-ville by bike, with obligatory tasting... and of course being superbly looked after by Mr Hugo and his daughter and their rental bikes. Fortunately the roads were quiet enough to accommodate the occasional alcohol-induced wobble.
*A superb vegetarian restaurant (The Green Apple) providing respite from the ubiquitous beef.
*While siestas are not so apparent in the cities, people still have a semi-nocturnal daily arrangement. We get really funny looks when cooking a large dinner at 6pm. Argentinians seem to emerge sometime after 10am, big lunch, and re-emerge at 10pm for dinner. Nightlife is just starting to kick at 2am.
Maybe it was fortunate that our first hostel got booked out and we had to move. While hostel Lao was nicely laid out and pleasant, it was a young crowd of predominantly American english speaking tourists, one wearing
his Yeehaa Stars and Stripes Bandanna with pride. Benj was itching to ask what that was about but was firmly kicked from somewhere under the table.
Perhaps the biggest treat was moving to an all Spanish speaking hostel (Estacion Mendoza). Sunday night, and the offer to join them for the equivalent of a BBQ (asolo) - the guys prepare the fire and the meat. The girls look after assembling salads. Sounding familiar? It was a fabulous night, with exceptional food and outstanding company. And now we could understand why people stay up past midnight...
Argentina has been through some really tough times. But these people are happy to say that Argentina, on the whole, is a wonderful place to live in.
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RobAndKrista
Rob & Krista
hola!
Hey Arlene, stalker of cafes :-) Good to see that hasn´t changed, and that you guys are still having fun! We´re home in 5 days, from mid-40s heat to what sounds like the nastiest NZ winter in ages, eeek!