Mendoza: Day 2

Some of you are probably wondering what a Mormon does in Mendoza, when 99.99% of people who visit here come for the wine. In fact, our tour guide on the bus this morning said "El que vino a Mendoza y no tomó vino, porque vino?". It's a play on words in Spanish, but it means "He that came to Mendoza and didn't drink wine, why did he come?"

Well. I am loving this trip. It's beautiful out here, it reminds me of the western United States, and the mountains are breathtaking.

Fun fact the tour guide just told us: Mendoza produces more garlic than anyone in the world except for the Chinese.

Also, the guide just said "We want to thank our bus driver Jorge today - he doesn't have a drivers license and he doesn't suffer from alcoholism, he enjoys it". Love the sense of humor (I'm fairly sure it was just a joke :)

Mendoza also hosts the tallest mountain in the entire Western and Sourhern hemispheres, Aconcagua (22,837 feet) but the road to the base was out due to mudslides. We did see the second tallest in the area, Tupungato (21,555 feet). It's a volcano!

Since we couldn't go see Aconcagua, the tour company took us south to Valle Grande. The three hour drive reminded me even more of the American west. There are "oases" where the major rivers are (Mendoza, Tupungato, San Rafael, where all the major vineyards are), and in between it is very arid. Our destination was a canyon, which we drove through, and saw a series of hydroelectric and irrigation dams, which they're very proud of. We took a boat ride on one of the man-made reservoirs, and I swear we could have been on Strawberry Reservoir in Utah.

It was pretty crowded in the canyon - people were zip-lining, rafting, kayaking, swimming, and drinking lots of mate. It seems this is definitely a hot spot for Argentines to come over Carnaval, a bit like Memorial Day.

More tomorrow!