World Argentina Mendoza Mendoza

9months4continents2012with Di

Mendoza 24 Apr 2012

Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina a good thing if you drink but also if you don´t. Very mild weather and when we arrived on the Sunday evening there was a market in the main square. The city is set out much like Adelaide with a main centre square and four other squares a few blocks away so very easy to navigate. There is also a mall running off the main square with lots of eating places. Mendoza was completely obliterated by an earthquake in 1861 and when it was rebuilt the streets had to be wide enough to contain any building rubble should it happen again and the squares were for people to meet. It happened that there was a quake in southern Chile and that it was felt in Mendoza. We had someone pop their head in at around midnight to say if we felt another one we were to go to the nearest square. Since we hadn't felt the first one we all just went back to sleep. Next day we heard that it was quite a big quake and was felt very strongly in Santiago. So glad it didn't happen while we were there or on the road in the mountains. Did a winery tour - yes a bit strange for me but a good way I thought to see some of the countryside unfortunately both wineries were close to town. We did also go to an olive oil place - pretty ordinary. Did the church bit and a couple of museums one of which had remnants of the earthquake and the archaeological ruins of the city uncovered, and basically just wandered around small enough place to keep bumping into people off the trucks. Noticed that a number of the fountains in the squares had pink water so asked and was informed that it was Malbec day no not a revolution or anything important yep the local wine was being celebrated and was being offered for tastings through the city including at one museum I visited. Jo and I had a quiet dinner in the main mall a nice but not outstaqnding meal. Its quite hard to get fully lost in Argentina most cities have a main street called either San Martin, Liberator o´Higgins, Lavelle so just head for one of them and you are bound to be in the centre of town. Even in Chile the street names are the same as the same generals fought there against the Spanish. Had expected Yana to join us in Mendoza but she was still in the shop in Santiago so we were destined to spend more time on Mamasita !!! Made the mistake of sitting down the front of the truck next day and spent it breathing truck fumes. Our first breakdown occurred around 8am so that was one hour...in all we had 6 engine stops during the day. Drove through the Cordoba area rocky mountains magnificent views till it got too dark to see. We got lost in Cordoba city tho not for long and then overshot our turnoff by about 15 minutes but finally arrived at our next stay the Estancia Los Paneros.