February 2,

We were up and about by 0730. Out on our balcony, we had our Javas and breakfast of fried egg with avocado on toast with garlic mayo. That was fantastic! We saw the little hummers again. I always feel blessed to see them.

I was doing some blogging and at 1040, we felt an earthquake!! Later we found out it was a 4.4 one, based out of Valparaiso, Chile. We were surprised that we felt that one, considering the distance, but as a crow flies it’s really not that far!

Around 1400 we went out for a walkabout. We decided to charge up our Sube cards. Then we caught the Electrico Mendotran, an electric trolley of sorts. We rode it to the furthest station, Gutierrez. Along the way, it’s still in the Mendoza metro area, but remote – south and a bit east. Overall, the area had a more local vibe – individual houses, shops, etc. and poorer. We got a great, larger view of some snowcapped Andes mountains. Spectacular and more of what I expected. It was hard to get that epic picture that I wanted.

Anyway, we exited and went in search of lunch, but Jeff’s search on Google maps failed us… many places were closed. We walked a bit and attempted to eat at the restaurant at Bodegas Lopez, a 1895 winery. But alas… we opted to not eat there. The menu revealed a lot of food and we weren’t ready for that. So we caught a bus back to the Mendoza city center, near our place. We found a local sandwich place. We ordered their pictured sandwich- Focaccia Mortadella with Pistachios. It was a Focaccia flatbread, a cured cold cut meat (mortadella) with pistachios, mozzarella, arugula, and pesto/olive oil seasoning. We had it as take-away and went back to our place. It was fantastic. Argentina is known for their sandwiches – we need to get more of these!

Evening came on and we watched some YouTube, then snack of their version of corn-nuts. Turned in by 2130.

     February 3,

We awoke to a total blue sky, no clouds about!👍🏻 We had our Javas and breakfast of a grapefruit each, half of a banana and toast. It was good! We haven’t had grapefruit in a long while. Then we had to get out for the beautiful weather.

We walked down on our street, 9 de Julio, to the Mendoza City Hall. There was supposed to be a museum here, but it was offices – strike number one. On the balconies of the building I assume was the City Hall, at one time, were many painted murals. Some hit my vibe. We moved on, walking to the Gen. San Martin Park. We went to the Museo de Ciencia Naturales Y Antropologicas- Contemporary Museum of Natural History. It was free and actually we enjoyed it. A google review summarized it best: “wide variety of exhibits- dinosaur fossils, taxidermied animals, and artifacts from various cultures.” When we finished we were “museumed” out. I think we are double taxed-out due to having to translate 90% of all the info.

After we finished we basically meandered back toward our place. We stopped and bought some empanadas across the street from us – at the place we did our tasting. We took them back to our place and that was lunch.

We relaxed and afternoon turned to evening. For supper we had the last of our stew and pasta leftovers. Then we watched some Star Wars sagas. Jeff turned in early as he’d been up since 03! I blogged some, but went to bed by ten.