I've been in Mendoza for a week now, and really haven't had an adventure yet! Tomorrow that will change as I am trying to get out to the Valle de Uco sur to scope out the highest altitude vineyards which are producing the best wines right now. This area is comparable to Napa valley many decades ago, and the only tours start directly from Mendoza and cost serious money. The land is big out there and walking or even biking isn't feasible, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I will figure that out later. I think the strategy is to get myself stuck, and then problem-solve my way out of it.
But I will post about that later. What is Mendoza like? I was surprised to find that it has a Holland-ish vibe to it. Not in the architectural manner of Bariloche, but in the highly homogenous, friendly, and socialist population. The presence of government innovation is abundant, in the manner of hydrating the abundant street flora via a system I can't really describe, the super-wide sidewalks, and in the soviet-era buses which seem to be the arteries of the public transportation system despite being of obvious Soviet construction (about to fall apart). It's obvious when the people of a municipality pay their government for more services in place of marketizing those services because the government has the capacity to make unprecedented alterations to the physical city, whereas private solutions must utilize the existing infrastructure. My communist tendencies aside, this makes for a unique aesthetic experience. I keep my wallet and phone in my back pockets here, return smiles, and feel entirely at ease. Mendoza's culture is one which prioritizes the enjoyment of one's daily life over, for instance, efficient city planning, practical business hours, and pragmatism in general. It's below freezing every morning but palm trees have been planted everywhere. The siesta culture here is stronger even than in Guatemala, and shops close at 1pm not to open again until 9pm. If you venture out during the siesta period the only people you will see are the young couples who didn't quite make it back to their homes, and instead settled for a bench to kiss on. If you are eating a snack of croissants in a coffee shop and start talking with the waitress, you'll get a couple hours worth of conversation and at least one free coffee. The roads each have at least three names, and the system of city blocks seems entirely forgotten. It's all very illogical, but you can't help but fall in love with it. The only irrational thing I can relate this to in the US is our continued use of the Imperial system of measurements; we all know it's inefficient, hard to learn, and obsolete, but it won't be abandoned any time soon. Mendoza is a city that embraces irrationality, staving off encroaching capitalistic pragmatism and efficiency. Maybe it isn't the climate so much as the culture that's responsible for this region's amazing viniculture...
Lots of trees in Mendoza. You can't really tell from this angle, but those sidewalks are super wide.
A nice gate.
I will have many pictures of things tomorrow.
But I will post about that later. What is Mendoza like? I was surprised to find that it has a Holland-ish vibe to it. Not in the architectural manner of Bariloche, but in the highly homogenous, friendly, and socialist population. The presence of government innovation is abundant, in the manner of hydrating the abundant street flora via a system I can't really describe, the super-wide sidewalks, and in the soviet-era buses which seem to be the arteries of the public transportation system despite being of obvious Soviet construction (about to fall apart). It's obvious when the people of a municipality pay their government for more services in place of marketizing those services because the government has the capacity to make unprecedented alterations to the physical city, whereas private solutions must utilize the existing infrastructure. My communist tendencies aside, this makes for a unique aesthetic experience. I keep my wallet and phone in my back pockets here, return smiles, and feel entirely at ease. Mendoza's culture is one which prioritizes the enjoyment of one's daily life over, for instance, efficient city planning, practical business hours, and pragmatism in general. It's below freezing every morning but palm trees have been planted everywhere. The siesta culture here is stronger even than in Guatemala, and shops close at 1pm not to open again until 9pm. If you venture out during the siesta period the only people you will see are the young couples who didn't quite make it back to their homes, and instead settled for a bench to kiss on. If you are eating a snack of croissants in a coffee shop and start talking with the waitress, you'll get a couple hours worth of conversation and at least one free coffee. The roads each have at least three names, and the system of city blocks seems entirely forgotten. It's all very illogical, but you can't help but fall in love with it. The only irrational thing I can relate this to in the US is our continued use of the Imperial system of measurements; we all know it's inefficient, hard to learn, and obsolete, but it won't be abandoned any time soon. Mendoza is a city that embraces irrationality, staving off encroaching capitalistic pragmatism and efficiency. Maybe it isn't the climate so much as the culture that's responsible for this region's amazing viniculture...
I will have many pictures of things tomorrow.
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