Cordoba

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Next up was Cordoba. First of all the hostel we stayed in was really good, the owner was very friendly and helped you with anything you wanted whilst his 1 year old daughter wandered around sticking out her freakishly long tongue and trying to drink everyones beer. The first night we just sat in the lounge and chatted to people which became a bit of a theme i.e we didn't manage one night out despite the nightlife supposedly being really good. We got a massive takeaway which we went to many times, made more interesting by the two women who run it who would give the thumbs up and talk about how they knew Lionel Messi as a kid, asking us about the Royal Wedding etc which I did my best to reply to in very broken Spanish. The next day we had a look around the city which is quite nice, lots of bars and cafes and a big gothic cathedral. We dipped into some museums since they were free which varied in interest. One art museum had a collection of cartoony pictures of gangs and prostitutes including a weird picture of a woman dressed as mini mouse which I took a photo of and is worth a look. Another place had a trippy 3D style picture which we got told off for taking a photo of (although I still have it mwahaha) but that was about it. We also went to a dinosaur museum which was a poor mans natural history museum explaining the big bang to kids in Spanish as well as full dinosaur skeletons yay, which turned out to be replicas, boo. We had a walk around the park including 'love island' (not sure where this name came from) before getting an ice cream and going back to the hostel to watch Barcelona v Real Madrid with the hostel guys and a few beers. We then went for a tour around the Jesuit Block which is where the Jesus pioneers set up a uni back in the day. There was a cool church, a selection of really old books including the first pocket books in the world and some grand rooms where they used to test the students (it's still a uni today). After this we fancied a steak and asked the hostel guy for a good cheap steakhouse. He suggested instead that he call his butcher (we've all got one) and so we went and bought some massive steaks for cheap. Mike (the hostel guy) then pretty much cooked them for us and it was one of the best steaks I've ever had. The next day six of us from the hostel and two girls we happened to have met on the Jesuit tour went horse riding. The bloke who took us was called Marcello who was a bit of a character. He had spent a few years in England playing polo and looking after rich peoples horses. Apparently in Argentina polo is a farmers sport because owning a load of horses is so common and inexpensive unlike in England where you have to have at least touched the queen once. Whilst there (or here if you're there) he had met Prince William, been paid £50k a year and driven around in Aston Martin's but he said he got sick of living in a house and driving a car that wasn't his and of the rich people who turned out to be empty (ouch). He was still a big fan of England though and referred to Milton Keynes as 'that crazy new place'. He doesn't have it too bad now either, his farm which he bought with the money he earned is huge in a really picturesque setting with small mountains in the background and cacti. Kind of what I think of when I think of Mexico. Its about an hour from the city and was sunny all day despite it pissing it down in Cordoba. When we arrived we had some maté. It's a sort of tea made from leaves from a tree and everyone in Argentina drinks it all the time from a little pot with a metal straw. It's rough though, tastes like someone's taken the ash from a pipe and just added water. We then got set off. Having never ridden a horse before along with most of the others we thought we did ok but in reality the horses were probably just really well trained. They got a bit arsey later on as we had to keep yanking their heads to stop them eating grass or give them a kick when they got lazy but sure that's pretty standard when riding a horse. We went for about three hours around the countryside up to a big statue with a folklore tale attached to it (not literally) and then back through some streams to the farm. I managed to get mine to run for a bit which was quite painful when you haven't got the movement worked out. Also my horse got a competitive streak and decided to leg it faster than everyone else. When we got back to the farm Marcello put on a massive asado (BBQ) and entertained us some more. It was amusing when he talked about how strong English women are and that when you give them a 'hey darling and a whistle' they shout 'fuck off' whereas in Argentina it's a common tactic. The next day I stayed in bed whilst Hayley got up at 6:30 to watch the royal wedding with two other girls in the hostel. We then got the bus to a small town called Alta Gracia where there is a museum set in the house that Che Guevara grew up in which was quite interesting. We then just got some lunch and walked up to the top of a hill for a reet nice view which looked a bit like Scotland. That night Mike the hostel guy put on an amazing asado with loads of different parts of cow. We also had Fernet passed around which is a mouthwash tasting drink mixed with coke that they drink a lot of around here. The plan was to eat and have a night out after but the combo of meat, booze, smoke and the fact that we only started at 11 meant that everyone was happy to stay in the hostel drinking wine. The next day we just had a look round some local markets and a touristy market that evening. It had some cool stuff which we wouldn't be able to fit in our backpacks and weird retro junk like typewriters and phones with proper dials that make you wonder how many years they've been trying to sell them there. A lot of people left the hostel that night. We had a lazy Sunday with a bit of table tennis which had been built whilst we were staying there, some pool and an overpriced lunch before vegging out in front of the tv. On our last day we had planned to go to a national park to see some condors but the bus didn't leave until too late and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees from the days before so another 1000m up would be a bit cold for a hoody. Instead we had another walk around, went to a cheap buffet and some shops and then just hung around the hostel before catching our night bus to Mendoza

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