We loved Cordoba. As Argentina´s second biggest city, of 3 million people, you might think it would be kind of draining but in the same way Buenos Aires is leafy and walkable, Cordoba is really pleasant too...but with a grittiness I rather liked. The beautiful architecture, colonial era buildings, cobblestone streets, but without the glossy veneer of B.A.
There were more things that I associate with places that aren´t home- Buenos Aires had no street food, but here there are lots of street stands selling roasted and/or candied nuts (nuts are a big crop in Argentina), fruit, and these delicious sandwiches called choripan - big crunchy bread rolls with a barbecued chorizo and a bunch of chimichurri sauce and occasionally some veggies. Lots of elderly ladies sitting on sidewalks with big baskets of produce. They grow beautiful garlic here, big fat heads with a few massive cloves instead of many tiny ones. The skin has a purply tinge and it has excellent flavour. Cherries are in season and we ate lots. The peaches are extraordinary, too. Down in patagonia the green veggies were gorgeous but the fruit was boring, local red delicious apples (not my favorite variety at all) oranges, grapefruit and bananas...but up here the stone fruit is all in season and it´s very good.
The museum in Che Guevara´s childhood home was a huge learning experience and I feel like I understand his life so much more now. It´s located in a tiny town called Alta Gracia, about an hour from Cordoba. Che´s severe childhood asthma led their family doctor to recommend a move from Buenos Aires to Alta Gracia and the family home is now a musem. The extensive texts mounted around the museum were beautifully translated into binders in the language of your choice and we spent quite some time there. Lots of museums don´t have any translations available so this was a treat.
There also happened to be a tattoo convention in town while we were there and it was a fun evening going to that. There was some fantastic music, and unsurprisingly a lot of very talented tattooists from around the country.
There were more things that I associate with places that aren´t home- Buenos Aires had no street food, but here there are lots of street stands selling roasted and/or candied nuts (nuts are a big crop in Argentina), fruit, and these delicious sandwiches called choripan - big crunchy bread rolls with a barbecued chorizo and a bunch of chimichurri sauce and occasionally some veggies. Lots of elderly ladies sitting on sidewalks with big baskets of produce. They grow beautiful garlic here, big fat heads with a few massive cloves instead of many tiny ones. The skin has a purply tinge and it has excellent flavour. Cherries are in season and we ate lots. The peaches are extraordinary, too. Down in patagonia the green veggies were gorgeous but the fruit was boring, local red delicious apples (not my favorite variety at all) oranges, grapefruit and bananas...but up here the stone fruit is all in season and it´s very good.
The museum in Che Guevara´s childhood home was a huge learning experience and I feel like I understand his life so much more now. It´s located in a tiny town called Alta Gracia, about an hour from Cordoba. Che´s severe childhood asthma led their family doctor to recommend a move from Buenos Aires to Alta Gracia and the family home is now a musem. The extensive texts mounted around the museum were beautifully translated into binders in the language of your choice and we spent quite some time there. Lots of museums don´t have any translations available so this was a treat.
There also happened to be a tattoo convention in town while we were there and it was a fun evening going to that. There was some fantastic music, and unsurprisingly a lot of very talented tattooists from around the country.
The Quebrada del Condorito national park was wild and beautiful, so unlike any mountains in Canada, and it´s a sanctuary for condors. It turned out to be a rather intense day for us... Despite the fact that we know perfectly well never to trust the weather in the mountains, we left Cordoba without raincoats...it was a dazzling bluebird day. The bus to the park was about an hour and a half or so, and we were about 10km into the 20km+ hike when we got pummeled and soaked to the core by a really scary thunderstorm, complete with hail. The temperature dropped like crazy and we got much too cold and wet.
We rushed back to the visitors center, and the soonest bus back the the city was 2.5 hours later, with nowhere close to the park to go, in any direction for many kilometers. The visitors center is no Le Relais...nowhere to sit and get comfortable, and totally indifferent staff. We were wringing out our clothes in the bathroom with teeth literally chattering. All my merino layers were sopping wet. There were 2 nice Spaniards in the same boat as us and were quite the comical sight, all in our underwear rolling out layers of toilet paper onto the counters to attempt to dry our clothes. The visitor center closed but we could at least continue to access part of the building with the bathrooms and we were just miserable, so cold, until the storm broke and the sun came out. The four of us draped our clothes all over the fences and hung them on random things and sat out in the sun to dry a little. It was quite funny. Eventually we had to put our wet clothes back on to catch the bus and I was way way way too cold on the airconditioned bus back, and I can´t help but wonder if it was a factor in my cough coming back. We didn´t see any condors, they aren´t so into storms either. We felt really stupid for not being prepared for weather. Looking back, it was an adventure, and it was still a really gorgeous hike until we got drenched.
That´s right, I´m sick again. I was 90% better when it turned around and decided to take another go at me. This time I have no fevers, no sinus issues, but my awful hacking cough is making me crazy. Nate is being amazing.
So overall, we think Cordoba was our favorite big city so far, not including El Bolson.
We rushed back to the visitors center, and the soonest bus back the the city was 2.5 hours later, with nowhere close to the park to go, in any direction for many kilometers. The visitors center is no Le Relais...nowhere to sit and get comfortable, and totally indifferent staff. We were wringing out our clothes in the bathroom with teeth literally chattering. All my merino layers were sopping wet. There were 2 nice Spaniards in the same boat as us and were quite the comical sight, all in our underwear rolling out layers of toilet paper onto the counters to attempt to dry our clothes. The visitor center closed but we could at least continue to access part of the building with the bathrooms and we were just miserable, so cold, until the storm broke and the sun came out. The four of us draped our clothes all over the fences and hung them on random things and sat out in the sun to dry a little. It was quite funny. Eventually we had to put our wet clothes back on to catch the bus and I was way way way too cold on the airconditioned bus back, and I can´t help but wonder if it was a factor in my cough coming back. We didn´t see any condors, they aren´t so into storms either. We felt really stupid for not being prepared for weather. Looking back, it was an adventure, and it was still a really gorgeous hike until we got drenched.
That´s right, I´m sick again. I was 90% better when it turned around and decided to take another go at me. This time I have no fevers, no sinus issues, but my awful hacking cough is making me crazy. Nate is being amazing.
So overall, we think Cordoba was our favorite big city so far, not including El Bolson.
We just arrived in Salta yesterday. We´re settled into a slightly lame city campground...it´s not so bad but it´s a big developed city campground, with plenty of pavement and cars. It´s so cheap though...instead of paying the equivalent of about $60 in hostel fees for two days, it´s $10.
Salta is really cool. Salta and Jujuy provinces have the most indigenous presence of the whole country, and while we started to see hints of it in Cordoba, on the bus here we must have passed an invisible border because it´s totally different here. There´s a bunch of cool new regional foods to eat, and the market was the first crazy chaotic market I´ve seen and we loved it. It reminded me a lot of the San Jose central market in Costa Rica. People look noticeably different too, darker skin and the beautiful wide Incan faces of Bolivia and Peru. People are really nice here. They´re very welcoming of tourists.These are the only two provinces in Argentina where selling and chewing coca leaves is legal, and in the same way you see the red streaks of paan all over sidewalks in India you see big clumps of
green chewed up leaves on sidewalks here. It´s got lots of health benefits before it´s refined into the monster that is cocaine, and it´s for sale everywhere. It´s about as stimulating as a big cup of tea or mate, and is a powerful antioxidant. All over the Andes it´s used both in whole leaf form, chewed, and as tea to combat altitude sickness. Our travel books advise consuming coca leaf tea when we arrive in high altitude places to help us adapt.
Salta has some incredible museums, and Nate and I were dazzled by the exquisite MAAM museum this afternoon. I was stunned, I had no idea about the high altitude Incan sanctuaries on about two hundred Andean summits. The child mummies that reside at the MAAM were removed from the summit of Llullaillaco, a peak on the border of Chile and Argentina, and it´s the highest altitude archaelogical site in the world. The mummy on display that we saw today was the Lightning Girl. The cold temperature, thinner air and lack of bacteria has kept the mummies extremely well preserved. There was plenty of controversy about the decision to remove the mummies from the site. They're stored at -20 degrees, and the museum itself is kept cool and dim to preserve all the artifacts that were found in the tomb with them.
I had an expected emotional response to seeing her...if you wish to see photos there's lots in google images.
The mountaineering footage of the dig on the summit was fascinating, as was the extensive information to read about Incan rituals.
http://maam.culturasalta.gov.ar/index.php?lang=english
http://maam.culturasalta.gov.ar/index.php?lang=english
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