cordoba | trying to travel light

Yummy cubanitos (rolled tubes of wafer filled with dulce de leche)

Salta to Cordoba was a bloody long and expensive bus ride (and still none of this food and champagne on the buses that I’d heard about from fellow travellers – turns out I was picking the cheaper buses available…). No eventful films, people, music to report on this leg of my journey.

Cordoba was a big city and the weather was super hot so I opted to take a taxi from the terminal to the hostel. At this point I still hadn’t quite got the hang of the Argentinian accent so the poor taxi driver had to put up with me asking ‘what?’ after almost everything he said. Still, we had a nice chat and he got me to the hotel on a busy commercial street in the centre of town without incident, so I was happy.

Xmas tree in Cordoba (in about 40 degree heat)

Cordoba (the second largest city in Argentina) has loads of museums, galleries, cinemas, music, young designers and other cultural stuff going on (it was Cultural Capital of the Americas in 2006) as well as being close to some interesting small towns that make nice day trips. With 6 or 7 major university it’s a university town so there is a great buzz about the place. It also has loads of branches of Grido, a chain of ice-cream shops in Argentina (I think they started in Cordoba and have more than 50 branches across the city) so I kept up my healthy eating plan of 1/4 kilo of ice-cream or sorbet a day…

The Palacio Ferreyra (Museo Superior de Bellas Artes)

The Jesuit Block in the city is one of the main tourist attractions but it wasn’t really my thing so I opted for the art galleries and parks instead (there wasn’t anything that took my fancy at the lovely art cinema, unfortunately). The Palacio Ferreyra (Museo Superior de Bellas Artes) didn’t disappoint with its amazing building and fantastic exhibition and art collection (where I also managed to get in free using my ICOM card for the first time on this trip). The Museo de la Memoria (about Argentina’s past military dictatorship) was always closed when I managed to pass by, which was a shame as I really wanted to go there. The Museo Municipal de Bellas Dr Genaro Perezi also had a great exhibition and collection, and I was really inspired (again) to take up knitting and/or crocheting by an installation piece that wound its way through the building on the staircase bannister (unfortunately, no photos allowed). I also had a lot of fun wandering around the city and hanging out with some cool people at the hostel.

Cordoba street art

There was a great weekend market on Calle Belgrano in a hip part of town called Guemes. It’s mainly an artisans market that reminded me of Spitalfields Market in London plus a healthy dose of Argentinian hippies selling their wares but the street and side streets are full of little independent shops selling clothes, accessories and loads of other stuff by local artists and designers. I managed to refrain from buying any amazing clothes and settled on replacing my fabric re-useable bag (that was lost/stolen in Cusco, Peru) and chatting to the shop owners about the lovely things they sold.

Che Guevara museum in Alta Gracia

Che Guevara's bicycle (apparently)

From Cordoba I did one day trip to Alta Gracia to visit the house that Che Guevara grew up in. Alta Gracia was a lovely, if sleepy, little town with a lovely park with a pond (actually a viaduct, I think). Che’s house was also a lovely little museum that told the story of his life (though not in any great detail) through mainly reproduction photos. There was a bicycle and motorbike but I wasn’t convinced these were the actual original articles (though other people seemed to think so judging by the number of photos being taken) and there was a separate room dedicated to a visit to the museum by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, which I found amusing.

Che's motorbike (apparently)

The weather was so hot that instead of making another day trip on the Sunday I had free, I took myself to the main park (Parque Sarmiento) with a picnic and relaxed all day reading my book and listening to music. I tried to go to another art museum but they were closed so I went and got (another) ice-cream instead. Getting change of any kind in Argentina is a nightmare (it’s even worse with coins in Buenos Aires) so when I tried to pay for my 10 peso ice-cream with a 100 peso note (what all the cash machines give you) the woman in Grido prefered to put my ice-cream in the bin rather than give me 90 pesos in change. I thought this was an outrageous waste of food but politely shrugged my shoulders and explained that I didn’t have any change and went to the next Grido shop where they would sell me an ice-cream and give me change (I did ask in advance this time though).