From the Streets of Buenos Aires to the Peaks of Mendoza

GRIP: Entrepreneurship in Buenos Aires

Cover image:  An afternoon at Plaza Independencia, in the middle of Mendoza.

After four weeks in Argentina, I’ve spent most of my time in Buenos Aires, so the city has shaped how I see life here. But just one week in Mendoza, where my mom grew up, showed me how different the rest of the country can be. It made me realize there’s a lot more diversity in Argentina once you step outside the capital.

Thanks to my internship, settling into Buenos Aires has been really easy, mostly because everyone in the office has been so welcoming. I quickly felt like part of the team, and the people there have turned daily work into more of a community than just a job.

Besides work, the city makes it hard to stay in on weekends. One Sunday, a group of us went to Mercado de San Telmo, which only opens that day each week. We spent time exploring the vintage stalls and the antique fair next to it, then found a small side street with umbrellas hanging above us that none of us knew about before.

Another weekend, a few of us spent the afternoon walking through Puerto Madero. The mix of the modern skyline and the river is one of the most impressive views I’ve seen here. We crossed the Puente de la Mujer at sunset and ended up at Palacio Libertad by chance, just as a live orchestra started playing inside. I also went on a tour of the River Plate stadium with other students, which turned out to be one of my favorite days. We visited the club museum, walked onto the field, and went through the visiting team’s locker room, which made the stadium feel much more real than just seeing it on TV.

Watching matches here has become its own routine. The Buenos Aires Fan Fest is always packed, no matter who is playing, and the roar of the crowd when Argentina scores is hard to describe. A group of us also squeezed into a restaurant with about twenty people to watch the USA win 4-1, which is pretty normal here. It seems like every plan ends up with a big group by the time it happens.

After a few weeks of all that, going to Mendoza felt less like just another stop and more like visiting a completely different country. I wanted to really get to know my mother’s city, so I stayed with family friends and met relatives I hadn’t met before. I spent a day walking through Plaza Independencia and around my mother’s old neighborhood, and that night I tried my first choripán from a corner stand. Even in those first hours, it was obvious that life there moved at a much different pace than in Buenos Aires.

That slower pace was everywhere, from how late people eat dinner to how relaxed a walk in the park feels. A friend from the program and I spent an afternoon at Parque San Martín, losing track of time as we wandered through the rose garden and around a lake we didn’t expect to find, with nothing else we needed to do afterward.

The next day, we went on a winery tour that turned out to be one of the best parts of the week. We visited three vineyards, each with its own style, including one that was fully organic. It was interesting to hear how each place described their process and history. We also stopped at an olive oil producer, which I enjoyed more than I expected. That evening, my family hosted an asado, making it one of those nights that’s hard to top.

The next morning, we went to the thermal pools at Cacheuta, set right in the mountains, and spent a few hours there before having lunch on a terrace with the same view. On the way back to the city, we stopped at the lake in Potrerillos, which was a peaceful way to end the trip before returning to Buenos Aires.

I have five weeks left, and after visiting Mendoza, I’m seeing the rest of the program in a new way. Now I want to use my time to find more of those differences, instead of just staying in the part of Argentina I already know in Buenos Aires. There’s so much more of the country to see, and I’d rather leave with a real sense of Argentina as a whole than just a deep understanding of one city.