Córdoba!

---

Hola Amigos!

This blog is a little late (I stayed in Córdoba last week!), so I apologise for that, but the sentiment is there!

So, from Puerto Iguazú, which I believe is where we left off...I took a bus to Córdoba. I left at 13.15 and arrive in Córdoba at midday. That is one long bus journey! But I got a flat bed, champagne, sweets, films, and a massive fleecey pillow, so it was actually pretty good.

The thing with travelling on your own is that you always meet people in the most unexpected places sometimes. Only sometimes, normally you meet them in a hostel bar if I´m being honest! But I met a Canadian girl in the queue for a taxi, and she had no hostel booked so decided to come to the one I had booked, which was great, I already had a sort-of friend.

The first arrival day anywhere is pretty much a write-off for me. I have a routine for arrival days....
1. Have a shower.
2. Go for a walk and find a place to have a café con leche and something to eat.
3. Have a nap.

I am about to go and do the third one on the list actually (I am currently in Mendoza). Luckily, as I had met Lisa the Canadian, I had an arrival day buddy and she had the same arrival routine as me.

Córdoba is a really nice place, very studenty and an amazing shopping mall with boutique shops that have dresses for about 400 pesos (too expensive for a cheap backpacker like me!), and really pretty architecture.

The hostel I was in was really nice, very sociable, one Israeli guy was a little too sociable with some of the girls, but hey, you get that everywhere! And the roof terrace looked out over a basillica (will put some photos up soon!), which was great to go and sit there of an evening having a beer.

I had quite a busy time in Córdoba, I navigated my way on my basic Spanish to Alta Gracia, where the Che Guevara house and musuem is (I learned a lot there, the most important thing being to always carry toilet paper, even musuems in Latin America don´t have it!). The day after, I did a horseback riding trip, which was amazing because I have mainly been seeing cities and towns in Argentina (apart from Iguassu Falls, naturally!), so getting out to the countryside of Córdoba to a place called Cabalango was so nice. And I got to meet some local people there, as it was a campsite with lots of Argentinian families staying for the summer. Literally, all the generations of a family go on holiday together, it was lovely seeing mums, babies, teenagers, grannies and grandads and all the men being so paternal with their kids! Very different to some European attitudes!

I also went to see the movie 2012 on my last day as my bus wasn´t until 10pm. Whoever wrote the script for that needs to be sacked. Or at least given a hefty slap. I was actually disappointed it wasn´t in Spanish so I wouldn´t feel as upset at the poor quality script if I couldn´t understand it!

So, from Córdoba I headed up to Salta, from where my next blog will take up the narrative....

---