This weekend, I
traveled to Mendoza, Argentina with one of my Chilean friends. We left at
10:00pm on Thursday evening, spent 3 hours waiting at border control in order
to cross into Argentina, and finally got into Mendoza around 9:00am on Friday
morning. We got really lucky with weather the entire trip; it was around 80ª
everyday.
Going to
Mendoza, I knew very little. I knew it was a wine town in Argentina, not too
far from the Andes. I expected the Argentinian version of Napa. However, that’s
not what I got at all. Mendoza is actually a pretty big city. The population is
115,041 people. Mendoza is the capital of Mendoza Province (which are the
equivalent to states in the US). It actually reminded me a lot more of San
Francisco than Napa, but if you traveled an hour outside the city into the
suburbs, you got into wine and olive oil territory.
We spent a good
portion of Friday hanging out after not getting much sleep the night before.
The one thing we managed to do was walk to Parque San Martín, a giant park in
the middle of Mendoza. The park really reminded me of Golden Gate Park in terms
of how it looked. There was a giant lake in the middle that we walked around,
dirt paths everywhere, people running, and trees everywhere you looked. One
thing about South America is that juice is really popular here; you have it
with almost every meal and it’s everywhere you look. So, not surprising, there
was a woman making homemade juices and smoothies in the park and we decided to
stop and get some. You got to choose the fresh fruit that went into your
smoothie (I chose mango and Eduardo got mango, pineapple, and kiwi) and then
she made them into a smoothie. It was probably one of the best smoothies I’ve
ever had, and my biggest regret was not going back to get another one.
Saturday was
spent trekking around mountains in Parque San Martín, specifically Cerro La
Gloria, and walking around the city. From the top of Cerro San Gloria, you got
a panoramic view of the city. It was incredible! The entire city is surrounded
by the Andes so everywhere you look there’s mountains. At the top of the cerro
there’s a statue paying tribute to the Army of the Andes, the army used to free
Chile from the Spanish Empire in 1817. I also found some flowers that grew in
our backyard when I was growing up so I made sure to take a selfie to send to
my mom.
Sunday, we went
to Las Termas, which are hot springs an hour and a half outside of Mendoza. I
had never been to hot springs before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they
were really cool! Because it’s the off season, it’s fall here, half the pools
were closed so only 12 were open. Each pool was a different temperature and
they recommended only spending 10 minutes in each pool. So every 10 minutes you
moved to a pool with a different temperature. Half the pools were inside and
half were outside, but I definitely liked the pools outside more. When you were
outside, you were surrounded once again by the Andes.
Monday, our bus
didn’t leave until 10:00pm again so we had basically the whole day to hang out.
Eduardo doesn’t drink for religious reasons, but if I was in Mendoza I was going
wine tasting. So I dragged him out to a vineyard with me to go wine tasting. It
was probably my favorite thing I did in Mendoza. We tried five different kinds
of wine: a chardonnay, three kinds of red wine (one of which was a Malbec, the
most well known wine from this region), and a sparkling wine. Since I turned 21
while in Chile, this was my first wine tasting and it’s definitely something
I’ll be repeating. The whole thing was in Spanish so I’m excited to come back
to the US and do it in English and be able to understand everything. I bought a
few bottles of wine, of course I had to get a Malbec to bring back to the US
with me. When I did the conversion, I realized the winery was selling the wine
for a little over $8. Definitely the best $8 bottle of wine I’ve ever bought.
The other little
known thing about Mendoza is that they have a lot of olive oil and olive
groves. So, of course, I had to go check one out. We did a tour of a grove and
then a tour of olive mill. The guide kept asking us questions, and Janell would
be proud, I blew the guide away with my knowledge. After, we got to do a
tasting of some of the oils they do. Unfortunately, the mill we went to doesn’t
do very many different kinds; they only do one type of blend, and then four
different infused oils. The infused oils were garlic, oregano, rosemary, and
basil. As good as they were, I do have to say that those from Olive This Olive
That are much better. However, after not having had good olive oil in three
months, it was nice to get a little fix.
I’ve been in
Chile for a little over two months now, and have grown really accustomed to the
Spanish there. However, the Spanish in Argentina is vastly different and I
definitely noticed that it was harder for me to understand. Had you asked me
two months ago if I would have been able to tell the difference between someone
from Argentina and Chile just from hearing them speak, I would have called you
crazy. It’s really interesting to see how much my ear has changed in just two
months and I’m excited to see what happens in the next three.
