Sights in Central Argentina
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Parque General San Martín
Walking along the lakeshore and snoozing in the shade of the rose garden in this beautiful 420-hectare park is a great way to enjoy one of the city's highlights. Walk along Mitre/Civit out to the park and admire some of Mendoza's finest houses on the way. Pick up a park map at the Centro de Información, just inside the impressive entry gates, shipped over from England and originally forged for the Turkish Sultan Hamid II.
The park was designed by Charles Thays, who designed Parque Sarmiento in Córdoba, in 1897. Its famous Cerro de la Gloria has a monument to San Martín's Ejército de los Andes for their liberation of Argentina, Chile and Perú from the Spaniards. On clear …
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Parque Provincial Aconcagua
The region's most famous park is Parque Provincial Aconcagua, home of 6962m (22841ft) Cerro Aconcagua, the highest peak outside the Himalayas and a favorite climbing destination. Reaching the summit requires a commitment of at least 13 to 15 days, including acclimatization time. Potential climbers may like to acquire RJ Secor's climbing guide Aconcagua (Seattle, The Mountaineers, 1999).
Non-climbers can trek to base camps and refugios (rustic shelters) beneath the permanent snow line.
From December to March, permits are obligatory for both trekking and climbing in Parque Provincial Aconcagua; park rangers at Laguna Horcones will not permit visitors to proceed up the Quebr…
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Nono & Museo Rocsen
Operated by Juan Santiago Bouchon, an anthropologist, curator and passionate collector who first came to Argentina in 1950 as cultural attaché to the French embassy, this eclectic museum reveals just how strange the world really is. It contains more than 11,000 pieces, including antique motorcycles, mounted butterflies, Esso gas pumps, human skulls, Buddha statues, film projectors, Catholic altars, 19th-century instruments of torture, a shrunken head and a 1200-year-old Peruvian mummy. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind museum, and requires plenty of time to explore.
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La Casa de la Piedra Pintada
Coming from Carolina, 3km before the Inti Huasi cave, a dirt track turns off to Paso de los Reyes. From the turnoff, it’s an easy 5km signposted walk to La Casa de la Piedra Pintada, where more than 50 rock carvings are easily visible in the rock face. Follow the signs until you reach an open meadow at the base of Cerro Sololasta and you see the new cable-and-wood walkway up the cliff face that gives you access to the site. Once you’re finished with the rock art, continue up the hill for spectacular views out over the Sierras Puntanas.
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Valle de la Luna
Also known fittingly as Valle de la Luna, this park takes its name from the Diaguita word for land without life. Visits here are a spectacular step – or drive, as the case may be – into a world of surreal rock formations, dinosaur remains and glowing red sunsets. The park is in some ways comparable to North American national parks such as Bryce Canyon or Zion, except that here, time and water have exposed a wealth of fossils (some 180 million years old, from the Triassic period).
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Iglesia, Convento Y Basílica de San Francisco
Many mendocinos (people from Mendoza) consider the image at this church of the Virgin of Cuyo, patron of San Martín's Ejército de los Andes (Army of the Andes), miraculous because it survived Mendoza's devastating 1968 earthquake. In the Virgin's semicircular chamber, visitors leave tributes to her and to San Martín. A mausoleum within the building holds the remains of San Martín's daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, which were repatriated from France in 1951.
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Parque Nacional Sierra de Las Quijadas
Fans of the Road Runner cartoon will feel oddly at home among the red sandstone rock formations in this rarely visited national park. The park comprises 1500 sq km of canyons and dry lake beds among the Sierra de las Quijadas, whose peaks reach 1200m at Cerro Portillo. Recent paleontological excavations by the Universidad Nacional de San Luis and New York’s Museum of Natural History unearthed dinosaur tracks and fossils from the Lower Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago.
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Parque Nacional Lihué Calel
This desert-like park is a haven for native cats such as puma and yagouaroundi. You can easily spot armadillo, guanaco, mara (Patagonian hare) and vizcacha, while birdlife includes the rhea-like ñandú and many birds of prey such as the carancho (crested caracara). Though you’re unlikely to encounter them unless you overturn rocks, be aware of the highly poisonous pit vipers commonly known as yarará.
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Museo Histórico General San Martín
Museo Histórico General San Martín honors José de San Martín, the general who liberated Argentina from the Spanish and whose name graces parks, squares and streets everywhere in Argentina; the Libertador is especially dear to Mendoza, where he resided with his family and recruited and trained his army to cross into Chile. The museum is in a small arcade just off Av San Martín.
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Museo Fundacional
Mendoza’s Museo Fundacional protects excavations of the colonial cabildo (town council), destroyed by an earthquake in 1861. At that time, the city’s geographical focus shifted west and south to its present location. A series of small dioramas depicts Mendoza’s history, working through all of human evolution as if the city of Mendoza were the climax (maybe it was).
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Inti Huasi
This wide, shallow cave, whose name means ‘house of the sun’ in Quechua, makes an interesting stop, as much for the gorgeous surrounding countryside as the cave itself. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the cave was first inhabited by the Ayampitín some 8000 years ago. There are regular buses here from San Luis (AR$13, 2½ hours), passing through Carolina (AR$4, 30 minutes).
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Museo Casa de Ernesto Che Guevara
In the 1930s, the family of youthful Ernesto Guevara moved here because a doctor recommended the dry climate for his asthma. Villa Beatriz was recently purchased by the city and restored as this museum. Its cozy interior is now adorned with a photographic display of Che’s life, and a couple of huge photos commemorating a recent visit from Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.
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Iglesia de Santo Domingo
On the south side of the plaza Indepencia, the Iglesia de Santo Domingo and its convent date from the 1930s, but reproduce the Moorish style of the 17th-century building they replaced. Take a peek at the striking algarrobo (carob tree) doors of the attached Archivo Histórico Provincial around the corner on San Martín.
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Casa Natal de Sarmiento
The Casa Natal de Sarmiento is named for Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, whose prolific writing as a politician, diplomat, educator and journalist made him a public figure both within and beyond Argentina. Sarmiento’s Recuerdos de Provincia recounted his childhood in this house and his memories of his mother. The house is now a museum.
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Hotel Eden
Take a guided tour of the once-extravagant, now- decaying Hotel Eden, built in 1897, where the guest list included Albert Einstein, the duke of Savoy and several Argentine presidents. Inside the hotel is the Miniature Train Museum, a strangely captivating museum devoted to, you guessed it, very small trains.
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Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito
The Parque Nacional El Leoncito is home to the Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito, which contains two important observatories: Observatorio El Leoncito and Observatorio Cesco. Night visits must be reserved by contacting Yafar Destinos in San Juan.
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Museo El Hombre y La Naturaleza
The now-defunct Estación Belgrano (train station) has been recycled into the Centro de Difusión Cultural Eva Perón, a cultural center that includes the anthropological museum, Museo El Hombre y La Naturaleza, a combination museum/gift shop showcasing weavings and pottery finds from the region.
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Reserva Natural de Merlo
Two kilometers from the center, in Rincon del Este, on the road to the Miradors, the Reserva Natural de Merlo is a lovely spot for creekside walks up to a couple of swimming holes. The obligatory ziplines have been installed here and you can go whizzing through the canopy overhead for AR$30.
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Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno
Underground at the Plaza Independencia, the Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno is a relatively small but well-organized facility with modern and contemporary art exhibits. Free concerts and theatrical performances are usually held here on Sunday night at 8pm – stop by for the weekly program.
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Cathedral
The center of town is the beautiful tree-filled Plaza Pringles, anchored on its eastern side by San Luis’ handsome 19th-century cathedral. Provincial hardwoods such as algarrobo were used for the cathedral’s windows and frames, and local white marble for its steps and columns.
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Museo de Vino Santiago Graffigna
Museo de Vino Santiago Graffigna is a wine museum well worth a visit. It also has a wine bar where you can taste many of San Juan’s best wines. Take bus 12A from in front of the tourist office on Sarmiento (AR$1.50, 15 minutes) and ask the driver to tell you when to get off.
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San Luis Cathedral
The center of town is the beautiful tree-filled Plaza Pringles, anchored on its eastern side by the handsome 19th-century San Luis Cathedral. Provincial hardwoods such as algarrobo were used for the cathedral's windows and frames, and local white marble for its steps and columns.
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Mirador del Sol
For a sweeping view of the town and valley, head up to the If you've got your walking shoes on (or better, have a private vehicle), you can continue on this road another 12km to the Mirador de los Condores, which is up on the mountain ridge, and gives views in both directions.
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Parque Provincial Ischigualasto Museum
The park's Parque Provincial Ischigualasto Museum displays a variety of fossils, including the carnivorous dinosaur Herrerasaurus (not unlike Tyrannosaurus Rex), the Eoraptor lunensis (the oldest-known predatory dinosaur) and good dioramas of the park's paleoenvironments.
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San Luis Train Station
Also stroll over to the handsome former San Luis Train Station for a look at its green corrugated-metal roofs and decorative ironwork dating from 1884. Rumors abound that the bus terminal may be moving here, but so far there's no sign of that happening.
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