Cacheuta Spa

[1] The spa lies on the old road leading from the city of Mendoza to the Uspallata Pass over the mountains into Chile.

However, in the heyday of the Argentine’s boom in 1904 the spa at Cacheuta was developed on a massive scale.

Financed by the issue of shares to speculative investors, a very substantial and luxurious hotel was built on the hillside above the river, with a bathing establishment below consisting of a large space lit from roof lanterns with individual bathrooms leading off it.

Within the ruins of the original buildings a new smaller hotel was constructed, only the campanile surviving from the former establishment; on the lawns there is a formal swimming pool.

However, it has also flooded the road to the frontier (now by-passed by a major arterial road a few miles to the south), while the railway was abandoned in 1984, so the spa is no longer en route to other destinations – though at only about half an hour’s drive from the centre of Mendoza it attracts a good lunchtime trade at the weekends, as well as Argentine patrons of the baths.