Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mendoza
"Bienvenido a Mendoza. La Tierra del Vino"
(Welcome to Mendoza. The Land of Wine)
This is the greeting you'll receive upon your
arrival in Mendoza. Yet wine is just one
among the many pleasures you'll enjoy here.
If we were asked to name the city best described
by the word “resilient,” Mendoza would have to
be it. Devastated by a major earthquake in
1861, the city was reincarnated as a verdant
garden in the midst of a desert plain. If you
were dropped in the middle of this city of nearly
130,000 residents, surrounded by orchards and
vineyards and lush with parks and plazas, you
would never imagine that you were in the most
arid region of Argentina, the Cuyo.
Following the example set by their Indian pre-
decessors, Mendoza's residents know how to
make the most of their limited water supply.
Just as dams have been built across many of
the rivers outside the city to provide water for
the orchards and vineyards, irrigation channels
or acequias, often shaded by groves of syca-
mores, run alongside the streets of the city.
Mingling what little rainfall there is with water
running down from the Andes, they provide the
city with much of its water. Despite the scarcity
of water - or perhaps because of it - Mendoza is
also an exceptionally clean city. Electric trolley
buses replace much of the exhaust fumes and
 
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