Esplendor by Wyndham Mendoza

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We were here one night March 6, 2024. We foolishly paid $270/night including breakfast. Even the front desk was shocked at our high rate but that was the booking.com rate. There was some glitch with the rate for that one night. It might have had something to do with the Argentina peso exchange againt the dollar. We wanted a business-style hotel before flying out the next morning. The room was ok, but obviously not worth what we paid. Oh well. Initially this was our choice as our hotel in Mendoza but we ended up staying just the final night before flying onward to Santiago. Good choice (to stay only one night). Great pool and comfortable enough room. Liked it, didn’t love it.

Termas de Cacheuta - Mendoza

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We were here March 3-6, 2024 US$370/night including three meals a days and access to all thermal baths). Great easy road trip from Mendoza to enjoy the gorgeous surrounding countryside. Busy, beautiful full board accommodation welcoming day visitors to use the pools. It gets busy. Number of rooms is limited so plan ahead. Two or three nights is perfect. Fun experience.

https://termascacheuta.com/

Park Hyatt Mendoza

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We were here February 29 - March 3, 2024 exploring one of Argentina’s premier wine-producing regions, including a visit to nearby Sposato winery. We paid $235/night including breakfast on a special promotion of buy 2 nights (at $353/night) and get one free. On our free night the following morning’s breakfast was not included.

Also, the annual stylish Vendimia fall wine harvest festival is held annually in early March to celebrate one of Argentina’s premier wine-growing regions. Turns out the Park Hyatt is always the center of lots of the official activity, including a visit from the country’s Vice President, and more than one fancy evening event with dignitaries and lots of handsome Argentinian men in suits, and gorgeous women dressed in sexy South American style. There we were in shorts and tee shirts. Damn! We had good clothes in our suitcases (in Santiago)! (See our EMERGENCY LANDING story below in the Raices Aconcagua Hotel entry.)

The Park Hyatt was buzzing the entire weekend and on the nearby streets, including the adjacent Plaza Independencia, were two parades — one at night and one during the day. And the city’s big amphitheater was filled to capacity on three consecutive nights with a cultural performance of dance and music. We attended the extravaganza on the first night when they crowned a Vendimia queen, chosen from the princesses from each of Mendoza’s Departments. It was fun! See below the first carousel of pics from the hotel and the second carousel of pics from Vendimia and around Mendoza that fun-filled weekend.

See the blog post about our Grand Tour of Sposato Family Vineyards in Mendoza here.

Raices Aconcagua Hotel - Mendoza

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We unexpectedly spent one “night,” February 28, 2024 (cost of room paid for by JetSmart Airlines) in Mendoza at the two star Raices Aconcagua Hotel — actually, we arrived in the hotel lobby at 5 am on the 29th — due to an…

EMERGENCY LANDING
Here's the complete story. We had a bizarre experience arriving in Mendoza from Iguazu Falls, located on the border with Brazil in northern Argentina. We intended to arrive at the five star Park Hyatt Mendoza on February 28th instead. However, we awoke that morning to an email from Aerolíneas Argentinas, sent moments after we had gone to bed the night before, notifying us that our direct flight to Mendoza was canceled due to a labor strike. Bummer. We’ve almost always had remarkable airline karma.

Paul got busy and discovered a flight on JetSmart Airlines leaving from the Brazilian airport at Iguazu Falls (very near the Argentine airport at Iguazu Falls) later that day destined for Santiago, Chile. We booked it! The following day we then quickly arranged bus tickets from Santiago, over the Andes mountains, arriving in Mendoza after what we anticipated to be a rather lengthy but doable 8-10 hour ride to finally arrive, a day late — with still enough time to make our scheduled wine tasting at Sposato winery, one of the primary reasons for going to Mendoza.

We departed on the hastily arranged flight from Iguazu-Brazil that evening but never made it to Santiago! During the flight the captain announced we had an emergency and would be landing in…wait for it…Mendoza, Argentina. At the moment we did not know it was a medical emergency of someone seated at the rear of the plane who was really sick. We were thinking, oh god, a mechanical problem with the plane is so severe we are going down, and going down fast. We just weren’t sure how hard we would be landing and coming to a complete stop!

Turns out we made a smooth landing in Mendoza, where only then did we learn it was a passenger’s ultimately non-life threatening medical issue. Departing in Brazil, destined for Chile but landing in Argentina created some red tape with multiple government agencies and several authorizations were required before we could resume our flight. This resulted in several hours sitting on the tarmac during which time it was MIRACULOUSLY granted by the captain, after Rich confidently inquired, that the two of us, along with 15 other folks, all ultimately destined for Mendoza, could deplane in Mendoza!

Shock on top of shocks: JetSmart *paid* for our hotel room. We still don’t understand why. But we were without our three checked bags. They arrived two days later. We didn’t care, we were in Mendoza despite the Argentine Airline strike!

We missed a day in Mendoza, and missed the bus over the Andes. (We were looking forward to that.) For two days, we had to wear the same clothes we left Iguazu in but we happily exchanged it for our first EMERGENCY LANDING story in all our years of traveling!

Tupa Lodge - Iguazu Falls

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After spending a few nights on the Brazilian side of the falls, we returned to Argentina and spent a couple nights, February 26th & 27th, 2024 on the Argentina side. We paid $119/night including breakfast. After three nights visiting the Iguazu Falls on both the Brazil and Argentina sides of the border, spending a day at each at wonderful national parks. The Tupa Lodge was a chance to enjoy a quiet, riverside location. We loved it!

Buenos Aires Apartment

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We were here for a month beginning December 9, 2023 until January 8, 2024. See the Airbnb property here. We paid $93/ night - overpriced as is often the case, in our experience, with Airbnb. Nice enough place but overpriced. Ninth floor penthouse with a large outside deck overlooking the street and city. We enjoyed our first time visit to Buenos Aires so much. A new, controversial president was inaugurated just days after our arrival at a time of (another) economic emergency. There was no noticeable disruption during our stay but the Argentine currency did continue to devalue while we were there. Perhaps there was a subdued, cautious demeanor amongst the people on the street. Major changes are coming in the country and the way the government is allocating social spending but during our stay it was too early to know what short and long-term impacts this will cause. With that as significant factors we would seriously consider returning for another stay of a month or two. It’s a beautiful city with great sights and great restaurants everywhere! Below are some pics from our apartment. The second carousel of pics are some of our sights around town.

Here’s are some sights around Buenos Aires…