Blogs from Córdoba, Argentina, South America - page 2

Distance driven today: 377 miles / 607 km Cumulative distance driven: 13,507 miles / 21,737 km Today’s trip: San Miguel de Tucuman to Cordoba, Argentina Practically as soon as we entered Northern Argentina via Bolivia, the landscape changed almost immediately. Ever since central Mexico, the landscape and with it the roads which run through it, have had a multitude of curves and have virtually always been ascending or descending. For almost two months now our mental mode when driving has been a combination of the following: sharp left curve, sharp right curve, steep uphill or steep downhill. However, for the past two days all of that had changed. Yesterday, we drove pretty much on a straight and flat road for over 6 hours from Tucuman to Cordoba in northern Argentina. Initially, it felt really good to ... read more

Sadly it's a 2 day journey back to BA to return the "Desado" :( This 18hr. Drive from Mendoza to Buenos Aires actually made me home sick is is a huge agricultural area lots of cows and crops. Check out this video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/UmI-dJs03C8 Check out this video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/TqoUeKIlTgo... read more

Che’s real name was Ernesto and was born to aristocratic parents. He was called Che because in Argentinian Spanish Che is a pronoun meaning ‘you’ and he didn’t want to be recognised by his aristocratic name so he adopted the name Che and was known throughout Central America and South America as Che Guevara. His mother was a feminist one of the first women to smoke, wear trousers and drive a car and his father owned a lot of land and both had a high place in society. They were on their way to Buenos Aires from Cordoba when Ernesto was due to be born and they stopped in Rosario (a town in between Cordoba and Buenos Aires) to have Che. Che was born in Rosario with a bronchial condition which later developed into asthma. The ... read more

Today I visited and studied Plaza San Martin, the main Plaza dedicated to the liberation of Argentina from the Spanish, I passed Obispo Mercadillo with wrought iron bars, I saw the Manzana Jesuitica (the Jesuit block) and the four buildings included in it, I looked around the beautiful church Iglesia Catedral. Outside a man asked me where I was from and when I said that I was from the UK he began explaining what happened in the Falklands and asking me when they would get their precious islands back. Whilst he was saying it in good fun, since coming to Argentina I have realised how much they want their land back. In my first few days in Cordoba a man wearing a small British flag on his t-shirt was confronted by an Argentinian who said ‘Las ... read more

Today I’m very disorganised and as a result it wasn’t a very interesting or productive day. I got a map of the city, got up early and had planned to finally get to the gaucho festival which is one hour from here by bus. By the time I’d got organised and had breakfast it was already very hot outside so I decided to go and see the historic town instead and get to know the area a bit more. I saw lots of beautiful churches, statues, had a delicious, colourful mixed salad with beetroot, tomato, lettuce and carrot, and to even it out for tea I had a burger with fries, then a toffee ice cream. Apart from this there was nothing to write home about but after yesterday’s three interesting conversations on the 10 hour ... read more