February 11th - 15th
We thought we were driving past fields
and fields of potatoes on the 11 hour bus journey from Buenos Aires
to Córdoba so were
just concluding that spuds must be a fond accompaniment for all the
steaks eaten here when a fellow Argentian bus passenger confirmed
that we were actually looking at fields of genetically modified soya. All thoughts about the influence of Irish immigrants on the
South American food industry left my head and I spent a good part of
the journey wondering where all that soya would end up.
Despite the bus probably being the
finest we have experienced in the last seven months, we still arrived
in Córdoba,
Argentina's second biggest city, tired and sweaty so it was nice to
find that the hostel we had booked was a good one ... friendly staff,
a roof terrace, TV room, free internet, breakfast of fresh pastries
and coffee included and a room for just the four of us.
Córdoba
is a pleasant enough city. Depending on the time of day, its streets
change from being packed pedestrian zones lined with shops and
bustling with vendors selling anything from empanadas (pastries with different fillings, bit like a cornish pasty) and
sunglasses to puzzles made out of colourful
paperclips, to deserted, lifeless roads which are only disturbed by
old cars driving through. I made it across town one afternoon to the
park, waited for the gates to open at 14:00 and then realised I was
actually at a public swimming pool - the park itself was the
surrounding patches of dry grass and a duck pond which wasn't really
worth the sweat that poured out of me to get there.
The hostel's barbecue night in Córdoba was a good one. Up on the roof terrace, we
were served one large chunk of meat after another, along with
potatoes, salads and bread. Beer and wine helped to wash down the
feast and there were grilled bananas with “dulce de leche” (like
a caramel sauce) for dessert. The cliche is true ... the meat here is
amazing and the Argentinians know how to cook it well.
We also had a wonderful day trip to La
Cumbre, stopping off at the geographical centre of Argentina on the
way. There are actually two places which indicate the centre of
Argentina – the now official one, marked by a huge flag and lookout
towers, and one a few metres away which is just a stone block. The
story goes that a statue of Christopher Columbus was meant to be
delivered to sit on the stone block marking the centre of Argentina
but it never survived the journey – it was either too heavy for the
boat it was being transported on, it got stolen by pirates or it
toppled overboard during a storm; no explanation has been confirmed.
We spent 2-3 hours in La Cumbre on a
horse riding trek. Robbie and I were landed with the real plodders of
the group so were always at the back and we couldn't quite keep our
horses from dragging us through thorn bushes which was most
entertaining for the one not being scratched to death. The
ranch itself was beautiful – horse paddocks and a couple of huts in
the middle of a vast piece of land surrounded by mountains. Cowboy lads served us up another fantastic Argentinian lunch of
meat, meat and more meat before a drinking card game began with jugs
of sangria. By the time we were on the bus back to Córdoba,
I had danced with the cowboy who had insisted he didn't dance because
“soy del campo” (“I'm from the country”) and I'd
involuntarily re-seen my lunch. It was a memorable day.
