Our first stop in Argentina is a gorgeous one. The super, extra wide, tree lined streets of Mendoza make many other cities seem crowded and ugly. The biggest tourist destination nearby is the wine region, but Mendoza was a nice place to just chill in. The plazas are really nice and there’s a really big park nearby.
We camped most of the time we were here. This required taking a bus out of town about 20 minutes, but the campground had a swimming pool and showed nightly movies, so it was a nice place to come to at the end of the day. The information in the Lonely Planet guide book to get there is wrong, so ask at one of the tourist kiosks and they’ll tell you the right bus to take, which I think was 174/175.
The park at the edge of town has a really cool irrigation system, as do many parts of the town. The water all flows through little channels, and there’s gates that slide into place to direct the water all over the place. So far I think the most beautiful cities in the world are the ones that manage their water well to provide lots of greenery. We spent most of one day wandering through the park and going up to the lookout peak. Unfortunately we never saw Aconcagua or much of the Andes from town as there was usually a lot of clouds in that direction.
We went to our first all you can eat vegetarian restaurant, which turned out to be a great deal even though neither of us really take full advantage of going back for more food. We also continued to find that breakfast in Argentina is a super huge challenge if you want to have more than some pastry and coffee. I swear this country doesn’t even start moving until 10 in the morning. Then dinner doesn’t really start until after 8 or 9 at night. A ton of restaurants aren’t open until then either which can sometimes make lunch frustrating if you were hoping for a particular place. And forget about anything being open for sure on Sunday. You might as well plan to have Sunday be your lazy day.