Mainly Mendoza

I took a one-hour flight today from Córdoba, Argentina, to Mendoza. If nothing else, there are two things I prefer about Mendoza compared to Córdoba. For one, I don’t have to go through the extra keystrokes to get an accent over any of the letters when I type “Mendoza.”

For another, I don’t think there are any other Mendozas elsewhere in the world, unlike Córdoba, Spain, and Córdoba, Argentina. So I don’t feel the need to tack “, Argentina” onto the end of Mendoza on the first reference in one of these posts as I did with Córdoba.

I’ll be spending three nights in Mendoza. That’s two full days, plus the time I had this afternoon. In addition, my flight out isn’t scheduled until 5:30 p.m., so I’ll have time to do stuff in Mendoza that day too.

My choice of Mendoza as a destination is a result of my sloppy, inattentive reading habits. Mendoza is Argentina’s primary wine region. When I looked at the guidebooks to plan this trip, I thought they said Mendoza is the whine capital of Argentina. I’m one of the world’s all-time great whiners. I figured I’d be among friends here. But, no. It’s “wine,” not “whine.”

(Of course, I’m joking. Can you imagine voluntarily going to a place filled with whiners? I’m an introvert and enjoy the degree of anonymity that blending in seamlessly affords, but I wouldn’t want to go to a place where absolutely everyone is like me. One of me is about all I can bear.)

I titled this post “Mainly Mendoza” not just for the alliteration, but because Mendoza is my base, however, I booked one full-day tour and one half-day tour that will take me out of the city. So, Mendoza, but not entirely Mendoza.

I’m not sure how the time I do have in Mendoza will go. The guidebook I’ve been primarily depending on for this trip lists only three sights in Mendoza, and it says only one of them is a “must-see.”

I have another guidebook I’m using, which didn’t even have a section on Córdoba. However, it not only has a Mendoza section, but it lists more sights than the other one, seven. (I don’t recall seeing this guidebook categorizing sights as “sees” and “must-sees.” If it does, it doesn’t think any in Mendoza rate a must-see.)

The bonanza is in my walking tour app. It lists a few dozen sights in Mendoza, of which it classifies 13 as must-sees.

We’ll see how it goes.

Mendoza Weather

When I left Córdoba, it was 22°C and partly sunny there. When I landed in Mendoza, it was 11°C and completely overcast.

As I wandered around Mendoza (see the next section), it was, I won’t say raining, or even drizzling, but rather heavily misting. As I walked, there were a couple of instances when the precipitation god managed to upgrade the mist to a drizzle, but it didn’t last long in either instance.

The weather forecast calls for the temperature to be roughly the same tomorrow, but it’s supposed to get a little warmer the next day. There’s just a soupçon of rain predicted for tomorrow and none the next day, but tomorrow is supposed to remain overcast. Some sun is forecast to break through for a while the next day.

While talking with someone to try to fill in for a problem that arose (see the “Flexibility is the Key to Successful Travelling” section below), I was assured that this weather is not normal for Mendoza. It’s usually very dry here and warmer. What have I done to offend the Mendoza weather god?

Speaking of weather, Mendoza is situated very close to the Andes Mountains. I can easily see some of them from my hotel window. I could probably see them even better if today weren’t mist- and cloud-shrouded, but it is. I posted a picture from my hotel window above, but the mountains are even less visible in the picture than via my naked eye. I expect to get a much better view while I’m here.

Wandering Mendoza

I arrived at my hotel before 3:00 in the afternoon, so I had time to do some stuff in Mendoza today.

I read in one of my sources, I forget which one, that I shouldn’t expect much to be open on Sundays here. Today is Sunday.

I looked at my walking tour app and found an attraction that opens on Sundays. Better yet, visiting it would fill in a gap on this trip.

There has been an absence of live fish that I’ve been able to write about and picture in this journal during my Argentina journey so far. (Live fish as opposed to the fish I’ve eaten, which were, thankfully, decidedly deceased.) But my walking tour app tells me there’s a “must-see” municipal aquarium that’s open today and stays open more than late enough for me to take it in.

I started my wandering around Mendoza, not so much wandering, as purposefully walking with the help of Apple Maps, to the aquarium. I had no problem finding it, nor did I have any problem seeing the sign that Google Translate translated into “CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC DURING THE RECONVERSION PROCESS.”

My walking tour app also told me that there’s a cathedral near the aquarium with renowned stained-glass windows. That may be so, but it too was closed when I got there.

(My walking tour app is hit or miss as to whether it even attempts to provide opening hours for the sights it lists. It didn’t try for the cathedral.)

Mendoza has several public squares, some of which are recommended as sights to see. I figured (correctly) that they couldn’t be closed. So I went to three of those.

The main square is Plaza Independecia. It’s the equivalent of two blocks, by two blocks, No streets run through it.

Plaza Independencia is very attractive, with lots of trees, grass, a wide fountain, more of a mist generator than a fountain, with a relief sculpture behind it, another line of normal fountains a bit away from and perpendicular to that, wide walkways with benches along them, and some open areas with paving stone floors. It would probably qualify as beautiful on a sunny day.

When I was in Plaza Independencia, there were several temporary tables set up along a couple of the walkways. Many had temporary awnings over them. Some vendors were selling crafts at the tables. However, most of the tables were empty. I don’t know if vendors decided not to set up today because of the weather or if it was getting late and a lot of them had already left.

If you went to any of the four corners of Plaza Independencia and you were able to walk diagonally across the kitty-corner block (you can’t; buildings fill that block), you’d get to another public square in the block kitty-corner to that intervening block. That’s true for all four corners. Each of the other squares is one block by one block.

I walked to two of the smaller squares, Plaza Italia and Plaza España. There’s also a Plaza Chile and Plaza San Martín, which I didn’t get to today.

Both Plaza Italia and Plaza España are very attractive, with a lot of design elements that stay in touch with their country themes, with appropriate sculptures and tiling.

Becoming gloomy from the ambient gloom, I walked back to my hotel after strolling through Plaza España. (In fact, I chose those two to explore because they were in the general direction of my hotel from Plaza Independencia. The other two were in the other direction.)

There are three more points to make before I leave this discussion of my walk.

All of the streets I walked along today had rows of mature trees on the sidewalks on both sides of the street, providing mostly unbroken tree canopies other than at the intersections. I had read about that before I came to Mendoza. That source said that the trees provide welcome relief from Mendoza’s hot summers. Today, they just provided beauty.

The second point is about the overall feel of the streets. I tend at this point in my trips to compare each city or town to the one that I was just in. It’s not always fair, but it’s just something my brain does unbidden.

It’s early yet, and my view might change after I spend more time here, but I found the neighbourhood I was in in Córdoba to be more welcoming than the one I’m in here. The architecture here feels a little harsher to me, and a little taller. But that might be just because I haven’t explored enough. And, I will grant that the trees here add a tremendous appeal to the streets. There was much less tree cover in Córdoba.

The third point to make is about the suggestion that I shouldn’t expect to find much open on Sunday. Yup, they got that right.

I think I’m generally in the central part of Mendoza. I walked along several shop-lined streets. Not a single one of those shops was open other than a couple of bodegas.

Some restaurants were open, but not all of them. To be fair, the ones that were closed might have been closed simply because I was walking around between meal times.

Flexibility is the Key to Successful Traveling

Remember I told you closer to the top of this post that I’d booked one full-day and one-half-day excursion for the time I’m based in Mendoza? Yeah, well about that.

I booked them through Viator. While I was walking around today, I got a ping on my phone from the Viator app. It was telling me that a tour operator sent me a message. The message was from the operator of the full-day tour that I’d booked for the day after tomorrow.

I needed Google Translate to tell me what it said, namely that the operator cancelled the tour due to a staff shortage. And it said I could apply for a full refund. Um, yeah. I think I’ll do that. I applied for and got the refund while standing on a sidewalk immediately after getting the message.

When I left my hotel for my walk, I noticed that there was an office in the hotel that offered a variety of excursions in the area. It was open when I left for my walk, and it was still open when I got back. I stopped in and asked if there were any full-day sightseeing excursions available for the day after tomorrow.

I told him that, preferably I’d like one that starts later than 7:30 in the morning. I don’t like getting going that early.

The reason I mentioned that to him is that, when I had looked at tours on Viator, there were a few of the type I wanted to take, but most started at 7:30. Only one of the full-day trips, the one I booked and was cancelled, started at 9:00, and none later.

The guy at the tour office (who was also the person who told me that the weather here now is unusual), said that could be a problem because all of the full-day tours to where I wanted to go start at 7:30. Long story short, I’m going to be incredibly tired that day. I booked a tour to replace the cancelled one.

So, Mendoza, what have you got for me for the rest of my stay?