Cordoba

La Docta. The city of students, Cordoba is Argentina’s second largest city. 10% of the population are university students, and as a result, it has made itself into a fantastic walkable city with lots of parks, bars and restaurants.

We arrived after the worst night bus of the trip. It stopped at every town with more than 10 people on the way, with the overhead lights coming on every time. The seats were a lot smaller as well. I guess we learned the difference between cama (bed) and semi-cama. Don’t need to do again.

We arrived on a Saturday, and checked into our hostel, then began to adventure around the town. Our hostel was located in the middle of the downtown commercial centre. People were everywhere, clothing stores too. For blocks, pedestrian avenues were filled with Cordobans doing their weekly shopping. Each city block is quite large, so there were a lot of indoor/outdoor mall insets within the blocks with more shops. We spent a couple hours in this worlds largest shopping mall, before grabbing lunch at a shawarma joint.

For the evening, we decided to walk to Güemes, the hip trendy restaurant neighborhood. On the way, we stumbled across the Cordoba pride celebrations. It was as if everyone who was shopping earlier was now celebrating here. Multiple wide avenues of flags and joy with were all chatting, drinking, and eating street dawgs, and just generally having a really good time. It was a great atmosphere to be a part of. There was a ska band at the one end of the festival jamming out. We later learned that this celebration is a highlight event in the calendar of the average Cordoba partygoer.

We then made it to Güemes, where there was a night artisan craft fair. Beyond the classic jewelry, there was a lot of ceramic work, and even some statues made of metal. We spent maybe an hour wandering around checking the stalls out for anything fancy and small. Cam settled on a nice ring to add to her souvenir collection. This market again had a bunch of people hanging out, just enjoying themselves and browsing. The population of Cordoba always seems to be outside doing something.

Dinner was had at a Thai restaurant. The spicy Pad Thai that we were warned would be super spicy was not that spicy, but the atmosphere was really nice. The lemonade was ok. Overall, it was a busy and hectic first day in Cordoba.

We started the next day with a quick to go empanada breakfast, before our walking tour of the historic centre. The historic centre overlaps with the commercial chaos from yesterday, but as it was now Sunday, it was now a ghost town. Every shop was closed, and there was no reason for a local to be out here. The dichotomy was a bit eerie.

We saw some churches, the main square and old government buildings, and the Jesuit corridor, among others. Each conquistador city is somewhat similar. They were all founded by the Spanish, then there was a lot of fighting, the church took power, and when independence was declared, there was even more fighting. Cordoba is no different. The guy who founded it got killed a year later. The Jesuit’s were the main power for the first couple hundred years, till they got booted. Argentina gained independence, then a civil war broke our for 40 years between Cordoba and Buenos Aires. Cordoba kind of won, then Buenos Aires did its own thing for a bit.

Our guide Luca was clearly hungover from the pride festivities the night before, he even admitted as such. But he was very good at answering our questions about the area. He gave us a great restaurant reccomendation too, which we took him up on for lunch.

We went to Arvid for lunch, and had sandwiches. The sandwich game in Argentina is top notch, and this was no exception. Most restaurants carry them, and they all have different types of meat with ham, egg, cheese, veggies, delicious sauces. Lots of combos, all of them great.

We went back to Güemes, where we crushed more shawarma’s for dinner. We poked around the art fair again.

While walking home, we came across a mass tango event. I guess every Sunday night, a local guy brings his speakers out to a plaza and plays tango music. A bunch of locals than all dance together to it, two songs on, then one song off for rest. We watched for a long time, trying to piece together how to tango. The upper body is very rigid, and the lower body is very fluid in its steps. There’s not a lot of hip movement. A young boy named Santino came up to say hi to us in English. He had never seen foreigners before, and was very excited and nervous. He thanked us for visiting his city. We told him we loved it. He then got back in the cab he apparently came from, and his family drove away. It was a very cute moment.

Cordoba is a local tourist city. Many Argentinians come for the weekend from nearby cities, but it isn’t a place that a lot of foreigners visit, especially white ones. As a result, we got picked out for being tourists quite a few times in Cordoba. It doesn’t bother us at all. I think its a good thing to go where the local tourists visit. Locals generally know the best places to go, and Cordoba was a lot of fun.

We’re not done tangoing though. After 20 minutes or so, Cam and I thought we would give it a go. We found a little spot where we could practice in place. The mass of dancers moves counterclockwise. It was hard trying to place the beat of the music. We had also been studying different things while watching, so the start of our tangoing was very troublesome. Some locals took pity on us, and offered to teach! One man in his mid 60s, Javier (we think that’s his name), took the first initiative, clapping to the beat so we could get the rhythm. Him and his wife showed us a basic 6 step as well that we could do. We practiced that for a while. Another man then showed us a different 6 step. And finally, an older woman, frustrated with my eccentric hip movements, stole me away from Cam to practice basic steps, repeating “caminar, caminar!” (Walk, walk!), as my lower body movements were too groovy. Eventually I either got it, or she gave up. They were all very excited and appreciative that we were trying to learn rom watching though, and we all had a great evening. We got invited to some other tango classes later in the week, but we couldn’t find them when we went looking.

There was a little show as well with some professionals. They dressed up in the outfits. We have a long way to go in our tango journeys, that’s for sure.

We were originally planning a hike for our 3rd day in Cordoba, but decided that the bus’s were too long and the views were not that great to actually do it. We used most of the day as a planning day for the rest of our lives.

Cordoba has a large park near some main universities, so we went for a wander there in the afternoon. Parque Sarmiento was a very arid location. It contained a small amusement park, which opened at 4:30PM! There was a long line of families waiting another 15 minutes or so for their fun. Everything in Argentina occurs late. A couple nice viewpoints were there too.

In the centre is a man made lagoon with an island in the middle. One bridge was closed, but that didn’t stop people from walking over it to the island. There were a few ducks having a good time in the lagoon. We watched the ducks for a while, bobbing their heads up and down looking for food. It became easier for them when some young kids started feeding them.

I guess its a thing to do some fishing in the lagoon too. Many kids had some string attached to a stick, and they would violently jerk their rod up when they thought they had a bite. We didn’t see any success though.

The park was full of many groups of friends and families, all with their blankets hanging out. They all (literally all) had their maté, which is a loose leaf yerba tea drank through a filtered straw, and their thermos of extra hot water. Maté is a shared beverage with lots of unwritten etiquette enjoyed by almost all Argentinians. Luca explained it to us earlier in the day. When you thank the provider of the maté, that means your done for the afternoon. Keep passing the maté along. Their pretty similar to the rules of smoking a communal joint. A kid popped by to say hi to us for a bit. It was necessary for the little girl to climb over the rock we were sitting on apparently. Her mother apologized, we thought it was cute.

We had dinner at a fun empanada joint. The corn one was delicious, it tastes like Horchata. We also had a soup with our empanada’s, called locro. This is a corn and meat soup in a squash broth. It was quite heavy, and filled us up real good.

Just one more day in Cordoba. We spent it walking around to some farther reaching residential neighborhoods. Cordoba is a dense city, and the first level of almost every block is commercial. To the west was a neighborhood with lots of highly rated restaurants. On our way to one of them, we got distracted with what we thought was a café. We walked in, and were greeted with an Arab buffet for lunch. Not wanting to be impolite, we got plates, and filled up on potatoes, chicken and vegetables. Well, one of us did. Cam saw a big quiche, grabbed the whole thing, and called it a day. The brunch was surprisingly decent.

We spent the afternoon plaza hopping. One had a dog that decided the fountain was a good place to hang out. It also loved doing laps around the plaza, and having the rest of the dogs chase it. Cordoba has a lot of well maintained plazas. Dinner was more sandwiches.

Overall, Cordoba was a lovely city. We may have stayed one day too long, but thats ok. It caters to its student population immensely, and as a result it has a very vibrant and social atmosphere. The people here were super welcoming, even with the (slowly decreasing!) language barrier that still exists. It’s a worthy stop on any Argentinian itinerary. But another city lies ahead! We will see you there!