Table of Contents
Entrance
Once there, we just followed the crowd and started waiting for the ticket office. There were two lines to get in, the left one is for group, so you will need to wait in the right one to get to the regular ticket office.
One ticket for the day cost 350 pesos.
Once you are in, you should go on the right to the grocery store, there you can rent a locker for 50 pesos (plus 100 pesos deposit, that you get back when you return the key). And not wander around like we did trying to understand how it works.
Once we got our locker, we changed and put on our bathing suit (bikini for Tina, and short for Alex).
The spa
We went around to check the place again, the lower you go the colder the water is. So, we went back on the top and bath in the only pool where adults only are allowed. This was also the least crowded one.
We stayed an hour or so in it before getting out and wanting to keep on our trip.
This was a nice experience, as it allowed us to be surrounded by local people, see how there are doing on their free day and enjoying with their family, but it really was too crowded.
Potrerillos
Getting there
The bus station is right were the bus is leaving you for the spa. But there aren’t many buses going to Potrerillos. We asked around but nobody knew when the next bus was, so we waited around 2h before getting an Andesmar bus to Potrerillos. While we waited two buses stopped but the spa was their terminal.
This bus costed us 35 pesos each and we made it there in 20min. When we arrived in the terminal, 2 other buses from Andesmar arrived at the same time. The scheduled for buses is never certain…
2h without a bus and then 3 at the same time.
In the terminal, there was a bus going to Mendoza. We asked the driver when the next departure was, he said at 3:30pm from town, and then 4:30pm, 5:30pm, 6:30pm, 7:30pm… from the terminal.
Town
Now that we have all information, let’s visit around. More let’s hang around. From the terminal we walked to the lake and a bit around it. The landscape was gorgeous as the lake is surrounded by mountains. From there we walked up to the village which was really small and quiet.
We got a viewpoint, on top of the rocks (5 min up) and then headed for what was a splendid hotel.
“No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” – Chuck Thompson
Where to stay in Mendoza
- Budget: Lagares Hostel
- Mid-Range: Altos de Mendoza Suite
- Luxurious: Diplomatic Hotel
