Mendoza

One of the enjoyable things about an advanced developing country is that the population still largely relies on public transportation, but the roads are all well-maintained and the buses are many and safe.

There's an intense feeling of freedom and possibility in the many bus stations of Santiago - you can arrive at almost any hour of the day and within ten minutes be on a bus to any part of the country, even to Argentina.

My Spanish friend from the student residence, Marga, and I decided to head to the nearby Argentine city of Mendoza, just across the Andes from Santiago. Friday, May 1st is Labor Day, and "Dia del Trabajador" is taken quite seriously in Chile. Shops close early starting the day before, and not even the main supermarkets open on the holiday. The only stores I found open walking down several blocks of Av. Providencia, one of Santiago's commercial arteries, were a McDonalds and a Japanese foods store run by a foreign Asian woman. In order to avoid the sense of desertion that descends on Santiago on long weekends, Marga and I joined the hordes fleeing the capital and hopped a night bus to Mendoza. Round trip, per person, was $48 for an 8 hour bus ride in a "semi-cama" (almost fully reclining) seat, and snacks.

Mendoza, located between Santiago and Buenos Aires, has the reputation of mixing a little of each country. The native Mendocinos, although they clearly speak Argentinian (pronouncing the double l "ll" as "zh," instead of the "y" used by other latinos), speak a very light, almost Chilean form of Argentinian Spanish. Mendoza is a city that still believes it is a town, where the streets are wide and lined in sycamores, and the stores close four hours for lunch from 1 to 5pm. It has a reputation as a shopping city, where Santiaguinos come to take advantage of the significantly lower prices. A lunch "menu," with appetizer to dessert, costs $6, as opposed to $9 in a comparable Santiago restaurant. Books and CDs, which are quite expensive in Chile due to the 19% sales tax, are often less than half the price in Argentina. And I don't need to mention the high quality yet reasonably priced leathers.

Our Chilean guy-friends at the residence teasingly warned us about the "Trans-andinos," who are known to be significantly more forward in their piropos than their Chilean neighbors. Marga related her experiences on a previous trip to Bariloche, where Argentinian men had openly and gladly yelled their appreciation for her from across the street. On this trip I was amused to only hear a muffled piropo as a man passed us - we joked that he must have been Chilean.

Out walking Saturday night, the main streets were packed with people enjoying the warm evening and window shopping. If you can forgive the generalization, it felt quite European. The sidewalks were much more crowded than I'd ever seen in Santiago; the entire population was either out walking or serving the strollers.

The way back we saw the sun rise on the pass through the Andes, lighting the desert golds and reds of the Andes, up to the cool greys and purples of the snow spotted mountains. The mountains are dryer than they've ever been, but golden autumn alders and pampas grasses lined the few rivers there were.

A curious note - The drive over to Argentina from Chile takes 7 hours, but the trip back takes 8. The difference? The Argentinian customs, beyond checking to see if your papers are in order, is largely symbolic. They didn't go through or scan our bags at all, didn't check through the bus to see if we were bringing fruits or illicit products in, didn't walk a police dog by us. The Chilean customs was serious, doing all of the above. It makes sense, now that I reflect on it - much of Chile's international trade is agriculture. A vegetable or fruit disease would be devastating, as would any bug affecting eucalyptus or pine - Chile is also one of the top timber producing states.


We got back today, and it's gotten cold. The weather changes abruptly here; two weeks ago it could get up to 85; now the temperature drops to the 40's at night at struggles to reach 70 during the day. The trees which are almost exclusively deciduous, have all at once begun to turn golden and brown and precipitously dump leaves on the sidewalks. This is clearly to the chagrin of the apartment concierges, who are rather obsessive about keeping their gardens immaculate, and now have to sweep and rake the lawns every few hours.