Mendoza, Argentina

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Our day began at Lujan B&B in Lujan de Cuyo, Argentina. The B&B serves breakfast as part of the package, but honestly I was still full from dinner yesterday. It’s strange eating dinner so late in the evening, going right to bed, and then getting up and eating again. Andi was hungry though, since he skipped dinner. And the kids are always up for a meal that they say they are hungry for but never actually eat.

Andi took Tory and Aden to the community room for breakfast while I pulled together our dirty laundry. The staff at Lujan B&B offered to wash & dry our laundry for $2. We needed it since we’ve each got about 2-3 warm weather outfits and they’ve seen a lot of sweat and sickness over the past week.

Thirty minutes later, I joined Andi and the kids in the community room. Lujan B&B had a big spread of breakfast foods — everything from yogurt & granola, cereal, toast, fruit, and eggs to order.

A world map hung on the wall where travelers can pin their home location. We chuckled a bit when the whole area near our hometown in Wisconsin was void of any push pins. No wonder so many people from back home gave us strange looks when we told them we were coming to Argentina.

After breakfast, Tory, Aden and I hung around the B&B property while Andi went to Western Union to exchange some money. Besides an individual money exchanger, Western Union is the other place in Argentina that will exchange dollars for pesos at the Blue Dollar rate. He quickly learned, however, that Saturday morning isn’t the time to go there. The line was wrapped around the block. Andi waited in line for over an hour, and when he finally got to the counter the woman said she didn’t have enough money available to make the dollars/pesos exchange. Ugh. To make matters worse, Andi had a tough time catching a cab so he ended up walking a kilometer back to the B&B under the hot sun.

By the time Andi returned close to Noon, Tory was losing it. The poor girl does not like the heat — it makes her so grumpy. She and Aden were fighting like crazy so I took away their iPhones and forced them to play a dice game with me. Believe me, that didn’t make her any happier.

Andi and I decided to walk across the street to get something for lunch. Unfortunately, the food stand across the street was an empanada shop and neither Tory or Aden will eat those. (Not sure why, they’re really good!). The empanada seller was super friendly though, and told us we could find several more parilla (grill) restaurants on the other side of the highway bridge. Based on Andi’s inability to catch a cab earlier this morning, we decided walking would be fastest.

What we won’t do to satisfy our kids … including playing frogger crossing the highway! Yikes!

We selected a restaurant called El Tio Dani and ordered a burger for Tory and sachipapas for Aden. Aden ate a ton of sachipapas last year in Ecuador; it’s cut-up hot dog and fries. Nothing sounded great to Andi and I, but we settled on a lomo sandwich to share. The waitress was so patient with our broken Spanish which we appreciated!

Andi and I hoofed it back over the highway bridge to Lujan B&B, sweating profusely all the way. Nothing like walking half a mile with a bag of hot fast food tucked under your arm on a 98 degree day. We threatened the kids with a, “you’d better eat this!” but Aden didn’t oblige. He’s still not acting like himself. Not sick anymore, but really not eating much either.

The lomo sandwich Andi and I ordered was quite the meal. Apparently, a lomo sandwich is an extreme version of a steak sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onion, chimichurri sauce, ham, cheese, and a fried egg. Somewhere, all those ingredients were lost in translation when I read the menu. Woof. It tasted like a cross between a burger and a sub sandwich, and was definitely heartburn waiting to happen.

Shortly after lunch, we called a cab and made our way into downtown Mendoza. I made plans to meet another traveling family from the USA who happens to be in Mendoza at the same time we are. Isn't social media a funny thing? I’ve been following this family’s travel journey for the past few months on Instagram, and now we have the chance to meet each other in person. It seems like we already know a ton about each other.

We met Susanna, Kirk, Mirabelle and Ophelia at Mendoza’s Central Park. It was so, so hot outside; we tried our best to find a shady spot at a restaurant and ordered cocktails and lemonades. We had such a fun time chatting about life & travel! It’s fun to meet another family with the same goals and aspirations of exploring the world.

Tory was literally melting in the heat, so Andi offered to take the kids to the park fountain nearby to cool off. Aden dunked his head in the water (I’m sure it was clean water, right?), and all the kids splashed their shirts. The afternoon heat in Mendoza is unreal, and there’s no escaping it. I definitely see why siesta time is followed and everything shuts down in the afternoons.

We hated to rush off so soon, but Andi had previously arranged for us to take a private downtown Mendoza walking tour at 5:30pm. He pushed our meeting time back to 6:00pm, but now we really had to go. We said “see ya later” to Susanna, Kirk, Mirabelle, and Ophelia. Both residing in the Midwest and traveling in similar places around the world, I have a feeling our paths may cross again someday.

Our family met the walking tour guide, Jeremia, in front of the Ministerio de Cultura building in downtown Mendoza. He introduced himself and shared a bit of information about this beautiful building.

After the entire city of Mendoza was leveled by an earthquake on March 20, 1861, the city was re-built with an intention to include green spaces for citizens in an otherwise dry, desert climate. City planners created five plaza squares in downtown Mendoza and dedicated each one to important relationships with the country.

The first plaza, San Martin, is dedicated to Argentinian General Jose de San Martin who lead the country to independence from Spain in the early 1800’s.

The second plaza we visited honored the country’s relationship with Chile. Jeremia described it best when he said the two countries are “friendemies” with a long, colorful past of land arguments and mutual support during times of crisis.

Mid-walk head dip for the children dying of heat exhaustion. Come on, kids! Let’s go walk around in 100-degree heat and learn about Argentine history! I don’t know why they weren't excited ….

The third plaza we visited honored Italy and the strong Italian heritage of many Argentines. Today, over 30 million people in this country have some sort of Italian lineage — that’s 2/3 of the total population. Many Italians immigrated to Argentina in the late 1800’s in search of a better life, bringing their foods and customs with them.

The fourth plaza we visited honored Spain. This was my favorite of all the plazas because of the gorgeous Spanish tile covering the ground. Murals on a wall of the plaza detailed an all-too-familiar story of the Spanish invading land of the native Huarpe Indians, Incas, and Puelches tribes. Jeremia said this plaza is controversial for this reason (honor the Spanish invaders? why?) and the feelings of some Argentine people can be seen by the vandalism of Pedro del Castillo’s scratched-out face on the mural.

I loved seeing all the everyday people utilizing these squares through the city center. We saw lots of families relaxing in the plazas, kids riding bikes, and people passing the wildly popular Argentinian tea, Yerba Mate, back and forth to each other.

The fifth and final plaza square we visited is the biggest and busiest of them all — Plaza Independencia. Located in the heart of downtown Mendoza and offering 1,600 square meters of green space, Plaza Independencia was buzzing with life on a Saturday night. The grand fountain in the center lights up every evening, and there’s a theatre and Modern Museum of Art in the plaza which offers free admission.

This concluded our official tour with our tour guide, Jeremia, but he offered to grab a beer or some ice cream with us afterwards to get to know each other a little more. He was such a nice kid — a college student who gives walking tours to make money in his off-time. He answered our questions about Argentina’s free education and healthcare systems, and we shared pictures of all the snow we have back home in Wisconsin.

Ice cream! It couldn’t have come soon enough for Tory who was melting down from the heat. This was our first time getting helado in Argentina. Jeremia explained that we’d first have to tell the cashier what we wanted and pay for our ice cream, and then take the ticket to the man behind the counter to choose our flavors. Tory and Andi picked strawberry gelato, I got dulce de leche, and Aden opted for a paleta (popsicle) which strawberry gelato inside a hard chocolate outside.

After ice cream, we thanked Jeremia for his time & knowledge of Mendoza.

Our new friends Kirk & Susanna messaged us on WhatsApp, inviting us to join them for dinner if we were still in the downtown Mendoza area. One mention of tacos & Tory was flagging down a taxi. Tory loves tacos. We hopped in a cab and rode a few minutes across downtown to Taco Azteca. Kirk, Susanna, Mirabelle and Ophelia were already there seated at an outdoor patio table. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying more conversation and fajitas together. Tomorrow, both of our families will say good-bye to Mendoza. Off to new adventures!

Back at Lujan B&B, we all took showers and I packed our backpacks. Sure, it’d be nice having more clothing options and comforts of home while traveling, but it sure is quick & easy to pack up our family of four with our small amount of luggage. It takes me less than 30 minutes to pull everything together.

Tomorrow, we’re heading to the Mendoza airport bright and early at 6:00am. Next stop: Bariloche!