The Gaucho Lifestyle

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Ola,

We had to wake up before sunrise, which is before the affects of red wine have completely worn off for those keeping track at home, and we hopped on a bus to Tucuman. The bus was one of the least comfortable we had been on so far and it stopped every minute or so to pick up locals and kids on their way to school as it did the milk run the whole way. On part of it, we ascended up a pass, climbing up and out of the desert and into the clouds, only to come out on the other side in a lush, green forest that was extremely wet!!!

We arrived in Tucuman and we had eight or so hours to kill there before our bus out of town. We wandered into town and visited the main square. The square was pretty enough, but there was very little we could actually do. You see folks, this is siesta country. Almost everything shuts down for a period of time during the day. In Tucuman, this period of time seemed to be between 1230pm and 5pm. Even the tourist information office shuts down! There were three things open and they were all cafes. We went to one of them and sat for three hours, but we did end up having some very good hot chocolate and a chocolate pizza so it wasn't too bad. We then walked back through the square, past some pretty colonial building and the art-nouveau Casa de Gobierno, to the main park in town where we took a look at an open-air museum that housed tools used in the sugar cane industry which used to thrive in the region. We then headed to the bus station where we grabbed some dinner and waited for our bus to Cordoba.

Cordoba is the second largest city in Argentina and somewhere that we were not originally planning to visit. We had wanted to see the city, but time would not allow it. Fortunatly, time became available. When we arrived, the sky was awash of pink and red and was very beautiful. We checked into our hostel, Baluch Backpackers, which is right in the centre of town. It remined us very much of a European style apartment with herring-bone wooden floors and four metre high ceilings. It was saturday, so the pedestrianised streets were very busy. They all have pretty magenta flowers arching over them, so it makes it more pleasant to walk along. We went to the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, which is the oldest university in the country and the fourth oldest in North America. It was built by the Jesuits and is now a UNESCO world heritage site. We got a tour of the church as well as the university and the library, which was complete with many 400 year old books. We then napped at the hostel for a bit before heading up to Istituto Estadio to watch Instituto Atletico Central Cordoba play San Martin de Tucuman. That's a soccer match for those who were confused. We had great seats, 4 rows up and just off centre. The atmosphere was incredible! There were fireworks and confetti to kick off the match and everyone was in fine voice and singing their hearts out, all to the beat of the drum being pounded out by the ultras at the end of the stadium. The crowd had three ort four songs, but all we could do was to keep up with the beat by clapping. The place went crazy when IACC scored their first goal! People were cheering, jumping up and down and a couple of people even climbed up a bit of the chain link fence that was surrounding the pitch! The match ended in a 2-0 win of IACC, and it was extremely entertaining to watch!

The next day, we were supposed to go horseback riding. We woke up at 7am and were promptly told that because it was raining so hard, we would try again at 10am. Unfortunately, it was after we had woken up. We were met at 10 by Maxi, who would be our guide for the day. As the day went on, we learned that Maxi was the coolest Argentinian ever!!! He drove us to the first dam in the country, which is 150 years old and would cause a huge flood in Cordoba if it ever failed. There was also a giant concrete hole in the reservoir where excess water was supposed to flow if there was a flood. We have no idea where the hole led to, but we are pretty sure it went to the inner circle of hell, or at least that is what Maxi suggested. We drove a little further to the exact centre of Argentina where there is a big flag to commemorate the spot. The exact centre of the country was 100 metres further east before, bu that was beofre the had gps and moved it. Then, we went past Cosquin which is where there is a large folk music festival in Argentina every year before arriving at La Cumbre. La Cumbre is a pretty little town and one of the lucky residents drives a 1929 Ford Model A. After that, we drove into the countryside and stopped at a ranch in the rolling hills near the Sierra de Cordoba Mountains. We each were given horses and we started riding. Valerie was quite good at horseback riding, but this was Peter´s second time on a horse ever. He managed ok for the most part though. We rode up to 1370m where we had great views of the surrounding hills. The area was very beautiful with streams, wooded areas, rolling hills, towering stone cliffs, old railroad tracks and even an eerie abandoned gold mine. On the way back to the ranch, our horses realized that they were close to home and decided that they wanted to increase the pace a bit. To a gallop. This was fine for Valerie but Peter had never galloped before. As Valerie took up gracefully, Peter, despite the massive grin on his face because galloping is awesome, did his best to hold on and his horse raced back to the ranch. Fortunately, he managed to hold on or this entry might have a slightly sombre tone. After they returned to the ranch, they had a parillada, a barbecue, but vegetables were served along with the meat so it was a nice change. On the way back to Cordoba, we went to Villa Carlos Paz, which is a very wealthy resort town on a pretty lake. We visited a cookie factory called La Quinta, where we picked us some great dulce de leche cookies. We also came across a club called Stephanie Weber's. The club was nameless for two weeks until the found a page that was ripped out of a passport that belonged to an Australian named Stephanie Weber. They could not track her down, but they named the club in her honour. After Villa Carlos Paz, we headed back to Cordoba.

On our last day in Cordoba, we wandered around town on a walking tour the hostel had suggested. We went past the Jesuit Crypt, the Cathedral, Plaza de 9 de Julio (everything is named for a date and we have no idea why the dates are significant), the Iglesia de Capuchinos (no, it was not a church dedicated to Starbucks) and then along the Milla Arta, which is an area of art galleries, theatres and museums. We saw the modern Paseo de Buen Pastor, which is an art gallery with cantalievered red and green wings, before visiting two more museums and some beautiful apartments in what was apparently the wealthy part of town. We then went back to the hostel, had dinner at subway where they load up your sandwich with lots of veggies, and then headed to the bus station for the first of our two long busses that would take us back to Chile.

Bye for now,
Peter and Valerie

Things we learned in Cordoba:
-It is very difficult to keep a gaucho hat while galloping
-Everything shut at 3pm on a saturday. For siesta. It is incredibly annoying
-Croissants filled with dulce de leche and powdered sugar are nearly addictive.
-We heard one of the best one-liners we had heard in a while: "You look like Idi Amin with a bow on your head." Honestly, we were laughing hysterically and the rest of the bus just did not get it.

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