Villa Maria, Cordoba and flooded in in Miramar - Argentina

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A bit of culture, meeting friends on the way, lots of hot days, being flooded and, evacuated and to top it all off a mad bash back to Cordoba to take a bus to Asuncion. You might call this a boring few weeks but it wasn’t. Just another day at the office of my backpacking life….

After Carla left Buenos Aires I spent the Sunday afternoon just walking the streets and enjoying the last hours in that amazing city. As I mentioned in my BA update, this city captured my imagination and I could easy see myself living here. I hope that one day I will return was and explore the places that escaped me this time.

On Monday I had to catch the bus to Villa Maria to catch up with some friends from Facebook. As I mentioned before, social media made this world a bit smaller and with the friendship contacts I have it is easy to catch up with people you have talked on FB. So after a 9 hour trip that was supposed to last 7 hours I arrived in Villa Maria. The bus traveled through some amazing country side. OK, it was all pretty flat, but this area of Argentina is the Pampa, the agricultural heart of the country. You drive through corn fields and livestock areas and lots of times you see the gauchos, the Argentinean cowboys, on their horses or sitting on the side of the road. It’s just like in a movie, though in real life. It’s like time stood still in this area. I thoroughly enjoyed that ride.

At the Villa Maria bus stop I was met by Danny and his girlfriend Gaby that had organised a hostel for me. Local knowledge is always appreciated. The room wasn’t the greatest, but it was cheap and centrally located in the town. After I put the backpack down I was taken to a pizza place and had some dinner which was great as I haven’t eaten all day. But it was off to bed soon as I was tired as hell. You might sit on your arse all day in the bus, but it still takes it out of you.

Being the good hosts Danny and Gaby were they had organised a trip to Cordoba. Cordoba is the second biggest city in Argentina and was a 3 hour bus trip from Villa Maria. So an early start and another bus trip…..

Cordoba is the second biggest city in Argentina and, with a population of about 1.7 million people, is pretty small compared to other cities in South America. Settled in 1573 by the Spanish, it is world famous for its Jesuits churches and buildings. The place was declared a world heritage listing in 2000 and I can tell you that the churches and buildings are pretty impressive.

After we arrived we set out exploring the old part of the town and it was pretty amazing. Seeing the old buildings and churches always makes me think how the conditions must have been 400 years ago to build these places. Human kind is pretty amazing. But it also greatly irritated me to see that a lot of these buildings are full of graffiti and vandalised. It’s a real shame that the people don’t take care of their heritage.

We also visited some museums, like tho modern art one, which excited Gaby very much as she is an artist herself. I, the arty farty person, wasn’t so much impressed with the modern art one; what people sometimes call art is something what I would call a piece of crap. As Picasso once said, he could shit on a piece of paper and sell it as art. Well it is all in the eye of the beholder….

After an amazing day in Cordoba I spent the next 4 days in Villa Maria. After all the hassle and running around in Buenos Aires it was nice to just spend some days in a quiet place. It was so quiet that I started to really relax and just chill out. Having coffees in different places, walking around the streets and the river, dinners at traditional Argentinian places with heaps of meat and just doing nothing. Well, there was nothing much to do in the town at all, except the local museum that is worthwhile visiting. One amazing thing is the working hours they have in Argentina and especially in the county side. So shops open at 10 am and then close at 1 pm for siesta. Reopening is between 4 and 5 pm. So in the siesta time the place is like a ghost town; you can shoot a canon through the main street and you wouldn’t hit anything…..

After a good relaxing time it was time to move on. I had purchased a ticket to Paraguay for the following Friday so I had 4 days to kill. Gaby has told me about a town on a salt lake called Miramar. Now this town wasn’t mentioned in my tour guide and the internet didn’t give much away either, so I got intrigued by it. Places that are less traveled are my weakness.

So off I went on another bus ride, this time only 6 hours, and when I arrived in Miramar it was immediately clear to me why this place wasn’t in any tour guide. This place was god’s waiting room, mixed with some wanna be hippie bars. The “beach” was an absolute joke and people were sitting on the rocks like the penguins I saw in the Antarctica. To top it all off I was the only gringo in town and wherever I walked I was stared at like I was an alien….. And nobody spoke English or German which made for some funny situations. At cafes and restaurant I just pointed at things on the menus and most of the time it was OK. I even received a Schnitzel out of the whole ordeal, which was of a very satisfactory standard.

So I spent the next few days in this town, walking around and exploring the area. It was actually pretty reasonably sufficient and the wildlife was amazing. There were amazing birds, including Flamingos, frogs, dogs and mosquitoes. These mosquitoes were like little helicopters and when on attack mode they were a pain in the arse. The lake itself is very salty and one day will turn into a salt flat, well not though I will see that in my lifetime….

On the second day in town I witnessed a vast storm moving in and it was amazing to see nature in action. The lightning and thunder was just wildly chaotic. Then the rain came and the rainfall was exceptional. Buckets and buckets of it. I was in a café when it started and I was told to leave. By the time I arrived at my hostel I was drenched. Nobody slept that night and at around 2 am we got evacuated because of the flood setting in. It was a funny thing when I arrived in the community hall, wet from head to toe and all my stuff drenched. When I walked into the place I was followed by every person in the room; and nobody talked to me, of which I found a rather peculiar experience.

Around lunch time the next day the rain stopped and the sun came out. I cannot describe how bloody humid it got. And the helicopters, the mosquitoes so to speak, had a field day and somehow they liked German blood the most.

Now the quest was to get out of town as all the roads where cut off. The bus station was not manned and nobody knew what is going on. I had to be in Cordoba on Friday as I had my bus trip booked so I was wreaking my brain what to do. So on Thursday, after another day being the gringo at the community hall, I packed my stuff and set out on foot via Cordoba.

Now there I was, backpack and day-pack and all walking and hoping to get a lift. And I didn’t had to wait long until I was picked up and got to the area where the road was cut off. When I was dropped off I just started talking to some soldiers and one of them spoke a bit of broken English. After I told him that I was German he started talking about the football world cup and I thought my chances to get any help were zero. But how wrong I was… After I told him that I really have to get to Cordoba he was rather helpful and in no time I was in an army truck on the other side of the road. What an amazing thing.

Once on the other side I hitchhiked my way back to Cordoba, getting lifts from cars and trucks, finally arriving at around 1 in the morning. When I rang the bell of a hostel and the guy came to it he looked at a very dirty, smelly and tired Welf. But I made it.

The next day I spent drying my stuff as good as I could and just walked around Cordoba. At 21.00 I took my bus to Asuncion…. Never say never to a Herfurth.

So that is it for this update. It was an adventuress and challenging time, but I have to admit that I love challenges like that; if everything goes according to plan it can be pretty boring….



I hope you enjoyed the update and until next time. Remember, life is a challenge and it isn’t meant to be easy. Not everything goes smoothly and to plan, how we handle these situations defines us who we are.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

The life of a back packer
So many countries and so little time. The bus was only 2 hours behind...that is not bad at all. You've shown some amazing architecture. Very cool that you got to ride in the army truck. People are so nice. Very cool.