Mendoza Day 1: Wining, Dining, and Generally Touristing

Plazas, Sundays, Parks, and Snakes

After a few weeks on the farm, Stephanie and I made for Mendoza city, the province’s capital. It’s a remarkably liveable city: unlike the endless Buenos Aires, whose borderlines seem more the stuff of legend than of reality, Mendoza is easily walkable, and adds to that more open and green space, and notable tilework in the plazas. When we headed for the city there was only one thing on my to-do list: bicycle wine touring. Which meant we were at a bit of a loss for what to do with our other day and half there. (If we’d planned further ahead, we could have taken advantage of rafting, hiking, or adventure sports in the area). As it was, we turned out to be pretty lucky.

            Our first night in the town we found a rock concert to raise attention to AIDS and sexual health taking place in the main plaza. For dinner we sampled the wine Mendoza is famed for, and got perhaps the most stereotypical meal possible: steak cooked in wine. (Another dish on the menu sounded like Argentina’s response to the Atkin’s diet: pizza with a steak instead of a crust.)

            The plaza is a very active place, and, it being Argentina, home to some impressive crafts stands. On a later night, we stumbled across a live tango orchestra, celebrating the famous tango singer Carlos Gardel’s birthday with a show. Audience members of all sorts, some dressed elegantly, some wearing sandals and street clothes, paired up to dance.

            Our first full day in Mendoza was a Sunday, an unfortunate mistake. We wanted to visit some wine tasting places, but most shops shut down on Sundays. (Speaking of wine, for those of you who would rather eat your drinks than drink them, consider trying Malbec ice cream, a flavor that came in season in my last few days).  We flipped through my guidebook and decided to check out a huge park in the area. It’s quite pretty, with many nice places to walk, and dotted with playgrounds. If you’re looking for a picnic area, a way to occupy young kids, or just want to see some nice nature, it’s worth a stop.

            Now, what we were looking forward to next, was seeing an ancient aquarium. My guidebook described it as an “underwater freak show” of preserved oddities from the sea, and suggested that the aquarium was likely unchanged since its installation in 1945, save for the level of algae on the glass. With a description like this, I couldn’t resist. Reality, however, could. We had chosen to come the year that someone finally decided to renovate the aquarium and it was closed to the public. Across the street, however, was a little snake-etarium, hosting a variety of snakes, a few large spiders, and other reptiles. Much of the charm was in the posters, which disproved snake stereotypes I had never heard of (snakes do not, in fact, drink cow’s milk, for example) and underlined that the only way to deal with snake venom is to get treated with an antivenom (do not try to suck out the venom, don’t apply a tourniquet, don’t cauterize the bite, drink alcohol if you want but don’t expect it to help . . . ). A few interesting facts I gleaned are that snakes are deaf, and that to make an antivenom, a scientist injects a small amount of diluted venom into a horse, removes some of the horse’s blood, and separates out the antibodies.
       We also made a stop by the Modern Arts museum (Museo Municipal de Artes Moderno) , located in the plaza. It was tiny, about 1 room, with a few nice wood sculptures, some obvious photoshops, and a less-than-inspiring very abstract movie. Not worth your time.

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Traveler's Tips:

Guidebook

I have a Lonely Planet guidebook, which has been rather useful. The latest edition doesn’t include street numbers in its maps, and is usually off on price listings, but has handy details like phone numbers and street addresses. Everyone in my study abroad program owned Lonely Planet, which suggest its either good, or trendy.

Snake-etarium

There is some more exact and legit sounding name for this place, but I don’t remember. It’s worth an hour or so, and is cheap, only AR $7, if memory serves.

Muy Amable

A few weeks ago, I ran into a German woman at MALBA, a well-known Latin American art museum, and translated between her and the ticket seller. The German had only been in the city a few days; while Buenos Aires was nice, she complained that the people were all unfriendly.

It was raining when I left the museum, an hour or so later. A few minutes into my walk, a young woman (who turned out to work for a law firm) offered me a space under her umbrella, and we chatted. Barely 30 seconds after our paths diverged, another woman, probably 40 years old, shared her umbrella with me, happy to tell me about interesting cultural centers. She walked two blocks out of her way to bring me to the door of my university.

While it’s true that you can’t set your bag down in a restaurant for fear of it getting stolen, and that men will whistle at you on the street, especially if you have any bare leg showing, Argentina is an amazingly friendly country. Pull out a Guía T map book, and strangers will come up to you and offer directions to anywhere you want to go.

Yesterday, I tried to go to a community tango class. The teacher and us had a confusion over the every changing start time, and missed each other. Not wanting to go straight home after the hour bus ride here, a from my program and I and an Argentine who we just met, ended up hanging out. The Argentine, Fernando had planned to come to the class for the first time that day. Who knows what the he had planned for his day, but  he took the time to come have dinner with us for 2 hours, then invited us to a friend’s birthday party that night. I ended up going, and it was astounding how friendly the people were. It was a grand mix of 20-somethings, mostly law or political science grad students (everyone in Buenos Aires seems to be a lawyer), including among the Argentines an El Salvadorian, two Brazilians, a Venezuelan, and several people from the US, here teaching English. No one cared that I didn’t know the man who’s birthday it was, and everyone was eager to talk.  (I’ve been feeling more like a real Argentine now that I’m taking in a bit more of the night life, though tonight I went home at 3:30am. I think that’s about the earliest it’s acceptable to leave in Argentina, but still makes you a little lame).

Today, several friends and I went to a neighborhood called La Plata. It’s an hour away from Buenos Aires central, and is a nice little town, that sports some beautiful European architecture. There’s an impressively tall and elaborate church with gleaming stained glass and a nice crafts fair (every town seems to have one of the weekends). The city was one of the first planned out cities, and is structured around 2 major diagonals. We mostly wandered about, and found that every few blocks seemed to have a park complete with playgrounds. In our part of the city, all the playgrounds have fences around them, presumably to keep out homeless at night, and it was nice to find playgrounds that didn’t seem to judge you for entering.  On the way there, we met two men from La Plata. One seemed quite the hipster: skinny jeans, oversized bright blue sleeveless T-shirt, and a small mustache. He’d moved to Buenos Aires to escape the violent treatment he got in La Plata for dressing the way he did. Though Argentina is liberal enough law-wise to allow gay marriage throughout the country, the further you get away from the city, and it seems, the city center, the more conservative the people are. These men assured us that we could call them for anything we wanted (and they weren’t hitting on us, we had two guy friends in our group), and that it was important for them that we feel at home in Argentina. 

Día 11 -14 Part II: Evita

 One of the best museums I’ve been to (and I’ve been to three or four this week) was the Evita Museo. As a side note, Argentinean phones can’t handle rainy weather, something that shocked me in a country so generally modern, and also meant all plans to go together to the museum failed.

A bit about Evita: she’s the most famous woman in Argentina, and was a far more important force than her husband, the president at the time. Evita was born poor, became a mediocre actress and was involved in social activism. She met Colonel Perón, married him, and became the soul of Argentina. She was an incredibly influential first lady in a time when women had no political say.

The museum was extremely positive in its representation of her, but there were occasional hints of a undercurrent of dissent. One display mention briefly that  when Evita used her health as an excuse not to run for vice president, those who hated her would post up the slogan, “Long Live Cancer!” Never did the museum mention why anyone would hate her.

I’ve been asking others for their opinions on Evita. One host person very diplomatically noted that she was an interesting person who pioneered women’s rights. The doorsman from earlier admired Evita’s work to alleviate poverty and felt porteños, tending to be rich, disliked Evita for her emphasis on the poor. A fellow (U.S.) student told me Evita organized police squads to ruthlessly repress anyone who spoke out against her or her husband, Perón, and perhaps that’s why she’s disliked.

But now, the museum. Before he was president, Perón was a colonel and head of a governmental department involved with workers, among other areas. However, for reasons the museum stayed vague on, he annoyed many people in the government and was arrested. Workers, terrified that their support systems would be lost, rallied in mass to demand his release. It’s an interesting parallel to current fears of losing the support systems Cristina has made. When in office, Perón transformed October 17^th, the day he was freed from prison, into a holiday called Loyalty Day, on which he and Evita would give speeches to the masses.

                                                     People kind of liked Evita

 Despite this, Evita was what made Perón stand out. She was beloved to the point of near sainthood, and it’s her policies his terms are known for. Around 1948 or 1949, Evita made many social rights part of the Constitution for the first time. This included rights for children, the elderly, workers, education, and health. It was also the first time social aid had been extended to all areas of the country.

In addition the classic orphanages and schools, Evita had several very novel creations. One included a children’s touristy program that organized and funded visits to the ocean or other areas, allowing poor children, orphans, and abandoned kids to see new sites. Evita also created a foundation dedicated to aid to other countries, an interesting choice for someone already trying to make many changes to her own country. The museum had several book displays explaining what rights people deserve. The elderly have a right to moral health (the picture showed an old folks home with a library), and kids have a right to love, because “children are of God and are the fruit of love”. I don’t know what of these actually translated to law, because it certainly sounds impossible to enforce and hard to support.

                                      Her actual quote on feminism (yes, I was officially allowed to take photos)

In regards to feminism, Evita struck the perfect note. One of Evita’s causes was winning voting rights for women (she succeeded). In discussing it, she said, we women aren’t in a fight for dominance with men, we just want the chance to help our country too.

Among the museum’s odd displays were a selection of photos of Evita’s hands in different positions and several propaganda filled children’s books. I’ll translate two for you:

1.

“In an old book of stamps, Magarita admired marvelous landscapes. Mountain ranges, woods, beaches, snow. How beautiful it would be to have a vacation in one of these places! Enthusiastically, she showed the book to her mom, and asked when they would visit these sites; the woman, saddened, responded, “Workers can’t travel because we don’t have money.”

            Fortunately, this occurred a long time ago, because now, since Evita created the Foundation, all Argentinean workers have holiday camps in mountain ranges and beaches where they can have fun, together with their families, on their well deserved vacations.”

2. My favorite, it’s titled “Love Is Repaid With Love.”

            “How tenderly the mother rocks the baby” commented Miss Clara.

            “And how lovingly the child holds out its arms!” responded Lucia.

            “Love is repaid with love!”

            Our homeland also had a mommy that rocked with her unlimited kindness: Evita!

            She completely sacrificed for and loved her town, and her town returned her love.   

            Love is repaid with love!”

In the years after her death, Evita’s body was moved four or more times, in attempts to keep it safe from those who hated her. In 1957  her body was interred in Italy under the false name “Maria Maggi de Magish” and now it resides in Recoleta, my neighborhood.