We spent our first night in Mendoza watching CNN who were following the British elections - we drowned our sorrows with some decent local wine (Malbec for Den and chardonnay for me) - congratulations UK we now have our very own Trump! I can hardly believe it.
The next day, with heavy hearts, we looked around Mendoza, we hardly noticed an earthquake of 3.2 at 11 am (apparently they occur almost every day). Eventually we stumbled across a walking tour which we joined and thoroughly enjoyed.
Mendoza is in a desert so they have filled the streets with trees, which are not indigenous, and built a series of under pavement water channels to irrigate them - although most appear as gaping holes which are quite dangerous. The purpose of the trees is to give shade as the temperature is very hot all year round. We ended the day on the 14th floor of the Premium Tower to have cocktails and get a view of the Andes at sunset. Because of the earthquake situation most buildings are low rise so this was one of the few places where you could get a panorama.
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| Water channels for the trees |
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| This sculpture is made from one complete tree |
The next day started at 7.30am as we had booked ourselves on a 11 hour day trip into the Andes - it felt good to get away from the hustle and bustle and noise of the city. The whole experience was magnificent - we saw an extinct volcano, a glacier and the Inca bridge (not that it had anything to do with the Incas apparently!) oops, and some birds. We followed the track of a railway line that went between Mendoza and Santiago de Chile, it was abandoned in the early 1990's. Parts of it were covered to protect it from avalanche although it looked pretty flimsy to me.
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| The Inca bridge created by deposits from thermal springs |
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| A shoe calcified by the thermal springs |
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| The volcano almost 7000 meters above sea level |
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| The covered railway |
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| A glacier |
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| A canyon created by a glacier |
3 comments:
Earthquakes! Volcanos! Planes that nearly land, but don't, then do! Are you trying to make me into a nervous wreck!
There's lots of water for such an arid place... can't beat a good irrigation system. I'm loving the architecture, but those mountain views! Fantastic.
PS Bird 1: probably Harris Hawk; bird 2: definitely Rufous-collared Sparrow.
Birds 3 & 4: unknown species, possibly pájaros grandes.
Love the sign pic of your both. Great boots. X
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