Why Tunuyan?

Talor: Why? Because it was a dot on the map in our guidebook, but we couldn´t find a word about the place anywhere. After reading through our Lonely Planet Argentina, we weren´t really feeling terribly excited about any of the places we read about so we decided to create our own excitement by being adventurous...

Just over an hour by bus from Mendoza, Tunuyan is just a quiet little town with nothing going on. When we visited the tourist kiosk, the only thing they could suggest to us was to take a taxi about 40km away to Manzano Historico, "Historical Apple Tree" where we could ride horses and pick apples... ummm, nah. Didn´t really appeal to us. What did appeal to us was that it was peaceful, the air was clean, and we were forced to do nothing... wow, what a relief! So that is exactly what we did... felt really good.

We pampered ourselves with deluxe accommodations at Hotel Tunuyan and had a king-size bed! Although it sagged alot (think it´s seen better days), it was our first since leaving home. We also found a couple of great places to eat... a diner next to the gas station, perpetually packed with locals at lunchtime, served up Spanish home-cooking in large portions. And, then there was the super-divey cafe by the bus terminal that had the cheapest, down-and-dirty, tastiest grub we´d had in (dare I say?) all of Argentina! Nothing but class for us!

In the evenings, we wandered out looking for signs of life, but found none... hmmm... where is everybody? Was it that it was early in the week? Are folks in Tunuyan just not the going-out types? Maybe a little of both, but then, we peeked into the casino, and found where they were all hiding... it was the happening-est place in town!

A few days later, we were ready to move on, but were glad we stopped in...

To see more photos... http://picasaweb.google.com/erikandtalor/Tunuyan