A few days ago I got to spend time in the city of Mendoza after exploring the surrounding regions. The city is beautiful and what struck me the most are the water canals. The city is located in a region, which at one point was primarily desert. Indigenous inhabitants of this region created canals and planted roots of these trees in the canals. Today the city is green everywhere and the canals have been expanded to bring in more water from the Mendoza River.

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I also met up with a few people I encountered the previous day to go visit the Parque nacional de San Martìn. The park as well as most of the greenery around the city is maintained by a series of canals and boasted hundreds of species of trees and plants. Trekked upwards towards the Cerro to see the statue of Glory and get unbeatable views of the Andes.

I also got a chance to chill back at the hostel and meet up with other passing travelers. At one point a conversations between an Argentinian, Brazilian, Italian, a few Chileans and a German took place where so many languages were flying by and each trying to translate words for the other to understand. It was an interesting gathering. I am convinced that Chilean spanish is incomprehensible most of the time. ¿Chachay? It will be interesting to see how things go once I cross over the border to Chile in the next few days.