Bernie's Travels: Mendoza, Argentina

From Valparaiso I caught a bus heading back east away from the Pacific Ocean, skirting around Santiago, and climbing over the Andes and back into Argentina. Coming down the much more arid side of the mountains and into the valley was the beautiful city of Mendoza - A small,leafy, sophisticated city surrounded by vineyards at the base of the Andes.

I was fortunate to be welcomed to the picturesque city of Mendoza by a great couple that I met through "Couch Surfing", Martin and Deborah. After an 8 hour bus ride from Valparaiso I made it to their house late in the afternoon, and that evening they prepared a traditional “asado” or barbecue. It was a tasty meal and great welcome to Mendoza.

The next day all three of us walked around the city visiting the parks and passing by two different demonstrations, something that seems to be common in Argentina. Mendoza was a beautiful city to walk around. Even though it is an arid place with little rainfall, almost all of the streets are lined with trees.

From a landscape architecture point of view all of the tree lined streets were very impressive. In order to irrigate the trees a series of canals were created along each side of the street. Every so often water would be diverted through the canals to water the trees.

In general Mendoza had great a feel to it. Plenty of parks and open spaces, and the people were especially friendly. Mendoza was a city, but a small one at that, and very distinct from Buenos Aires. In contrast Mendoza seemed more relaxed and didn't take itself so seriously. I ended up staying with Martin an Deborah four nights in all. We had a great time together and Deborah made some delicious meals. They took such great care of me – really wonderful people.

When Martin and Deborah were showing me their place they were lamenting the new construction that recently became visible from their patio and dinning room table. They talked about creating a “green” wall to block the not-so-pleasant view of water tanks, satellite dishes, and taller buildings that had recently cropped up. It had been a while since I had done a project and that sounded like a good one so I volunteered to help them to make it happen. It was a fun project that turned out beautifully. Of course the wires are still missing the vines to actually make it a “green” wall, but they will come later.

Before I left Mendoza I had one more thing that I had to see - the vineyards and wine bodegas (warehouses). Mendoza is world famous for its wine and just outside of town are a number of great vineyards and wineries. I visited one called "La Rural" that served both a wine making museum as well as a modern day winery. I took a tour that talked about the earliest days of wine making in Mendoza and finished with it's modern production techniques. At the end we all got to sample the goods.