Mendoza (10.07)

The original plan about Mendoza revolved around staying there for a couple of nights. Niki´s plan was even more ambitious as she secretly intended to go skiing in the Andes. The bottom line however, was the fact that we didn’t really want to spend too much money in Mendoza, and we were unable to catch any couch on Couchsurfing. Anyhow we arrived in the afternoon and found a nice and relatively cheap (30 peso / night / person) hostel just next to the bus terminal (it’s called Hostel Uma, if anyone wants to check it out). It’s just a 15-minute walk to the city center, so it ain’t a tragedy. As soon as we unloaded our stuff and caught a breath we headed for a walk there.

We have to admit that Mendoza is a very friendly place, the life flows at a slower pace compared to Buenos Aires, which was a relief. To our surprise it’s also much cleaner. All in all the first impressions were absolutely positive and we wouldn’t mind staying there for a longer time, to work and hang out, just like it Capital Federal. The center is more spacious and greener than that of Buenos Aires (it’s nightmare there), with omnipresent coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. Even though it’s winter people enjoyed their time staying outside, drinking mate or whatever it was they had to drink.

A couple of hundreds meters further you’ll find Plaza Independencia - the central spot of Mendoza. It’s basically a small park with two nice fountains in the middle and a feria artesanal (small stands selling handcraft products). Lot’s of young people sit around on the grass in the midday sun playing guitar, sipping beer and smoking weed. Sweet.

En route to Plaza Independencia Niki popped into a tourist agency to ask about skiing possibilities and emerged with a shameless grin on her face. “Baby, how much are you willing to spend on my skiing?” I heard. “Nothing” was the obvious reply, since I can’t ski and in case she really pulled it off I would have to find something else to do. According to Niki a whole day on a slope would cost her (us) something around 200 peso, which really wasn’t that bad, considering that it would cover transport, ski pass and equipment rental. So we stared thinking about it more seriously and doing more research around Mendoza. The results weren’t too encouraging. In the end the total amount reached 300 peso, because the high season had started just 2 days before and some of the agencies where not fully aware of the prices. So we gave up the idea, and since there wasn’t much else for us to do in the city we came up with the idea to go up to the mountains and see what’s up there. Our destination was Uspallata, a small town at the altitude of about 4000 meters, and on the way to the skiing slopes as well as to the border crossing with Chile.

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