Mendoza Meander

Aside from wine, Mendoza has a lot of outdoor activities to offer - rafting, horseback riding, and the like.  However, they are all expensive and all a ways out of town.  Long on upcoming Patagonian opportunities for adventure and short on cash, we spent much of our time hanging out in the city and checking out what it has to offer.  And what it has to offer is a really lovely town with lots of activity, tree-lined streets, tasty food, and friendly people.  A few shots of our time here...

Chad in front of one of the many nice fountains along one of the many shopping streets.  This was our first night, before we found out our bank cards weren't going to work and spent the rest of the evening checking different ATMs and on the phone with RBC.  Crisis averted; our cards mysteriously started working again the next day.

In the other Central Park.  On Saturday this place buzzed with activity as friends and families strolled, picnicked, fed ducks, and the like.

Mendoza has five central plazas, set out on the city map like the number five on dice.  We made it our mission to see all five.  This is not as impressive as it sounds - you can walk to all of them within about 15 minutes.

Plaza San Martin, lovely and known as the 'banking square', since it's lined by about ten banks.

Plaza Espana.  Claimed to be the most beautiful for its tile work.  Built as a tribute to Argentina's relationship with Spain.

Fountains throughout the city were spewing pink water.  We assume this was on purpose, but why is anyone's guess.  To celebrate the local vino culture, perhaps?

Just another outdoor patio... 

Plaza Italia.  Nothing particularly Italian about it, but it was nice enough.

On a particularly hot afternoon we checked out the huge park to the west of the city.  It was filled with paths and people running and making us feel lazy.  (Near the university - a fertile source of runners.)

Gateway to the park, topped by a condor, just like Chile.  Both Chile and Argentina use condors as common, official symbols.  Weirdly, the Andean Condor is the national bird of Chile, Bolivia, Colombia and Equador, but not Argentina.  

Mendoza is in the middle of a desert, but somehow manages to be lush and green.  Its irrigation ditches, like the one pictured below, are the cause of this anomaly.  Many are dry, and I wouldn't be drinking what's in the other ones if you paid me, but they seem to do the trick.

We also wandered through what seemed to be one of the more rich neighbourhoods near the park/university, featuring nice houses like this one (we particularly liked the doors):

Plaza Independencia by day.  This is the biggest, and the one in the middle, usually filled with people hanging out or just passing through.

And finally, Plaza Chile.  Doesn't even merit a fountain!

Although not as bad as Santiago, Mendoza is also filled with dogs.  The town solves the dogs-feeding-on-the-garbage problem by using these elevated storage bins and then collecting the garbage regularly.

And finally, a few shots I took while out for a wander.  I was trying to capture the number and variety of old vehicles around Mendoza.  They must have some good mechanics down here!