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| Asado at David and Leslie's house |
We took a bus to Mendoza, Argentina on Wednesday. We thought we'd have a 3 hour layover in Mendoza before our next bus, but we didn't because it took 3 hours to get over the border... fun! So we hopped on another 12 hour bus ride to Cordoba, Argentina. It was an overnight bus, but I just couldn't sleep well at all because I was cold and hungry... we rolled into Cordoba at 6:30 and waited an hour to call our couch surfer, who said we could come right away. We took a short cab ride and Victoria met us in the lobby and took us up to her apartment she shares with her husband, Manuel. We slept until noon then ventured out to find food. Cordoba is huge, and crazy! There are tons of people everywhere all over the streets. It's beautiful, though. It's more European feeling and less modern then Santiago, which I really enjoy. For some reason there are tons of women carrying really tiny babies around. It's very strange, but I love it because they are so cute.
We then went out for a pizza and beer with Victoria, Manuel, and her friend from couchsurfing.com, who everyone calls "Wineman." It was so hot, even at midnight! It was really nice, but it means the days will be very very hot... The next day we walked around some more, trying to visit museums but they either closed at noon for the day or were closed until 5pm for siesta. It was a little frustrating! We found a couple open, and found an amazing, huge gothic church. Then we went back and Jesse made a pea and pepper risotto for all of us for dinner.
The next day we all went camping with another couchsufer, Chris and his friend Fernando, as well as 3 German kids that were staying with Chris. Chris is studying to be an English teacher and loves to play tour guide to all his couchsurfers. He's really good at it. We took an hour bus ride out of Cordoba to a reserve, and hiked about an hour and half up a rocky river bed to a campsite. There were cows and wild horses all over the place. It was really beautiful. There were people swimming in the river in all the swimming holes. We got to the campsite and set up, then went for a quick swim in a nearby hole and then cooked our burgers. It was a warm night of course, and we didn't need the sleeping bags, but it was pretty windy! The next day we hiked about 30 more minutes further up the river to a small waterfall with another swimming hole, and hung out there for a couple hours. It wasn't cold water, and it was really cool to be swimming in an all natural pool.
Then we hiked down, had a lunch of cheese, salami, and bread, and got our stuff together and hiked back down. We got into Cordoba about 8, showered, then met up with Chris at the artesanal fair downtown. Argentina has a law that only handmade products can be sold in outdoor markets, and it really makes a difference. A lot of the ferrias in Chile were just crappy Chinese stuff. It was a fantastic market! Jewelry, plants, clothes, food, toys, etc. We got a small ceramic tile with a picture of South America painted on it. Then Chris took us to a cool bar called Dada Mini which really cool, and we had a couple beers, which are always totally awesome in the Argentinian heat!!
The next day we took off for Rosales on a short 6 hour bus ride ;). But our bus broke down or something and we had to stop in a town for an hour and a half. Not unusual, really. A new bus came and got us and I slept all the way to Rosario because the air conditioning wasn't working very well and I just can't stay awake in this heat! We rolled into Rosario and got a cab to our Couchsurfer, Eduardo's, place. No one answered the doorbell... for half an hour! So we sat and waited. We were just about to go to a hotel, when Eduardo jogged around the corner. He'd been on a run. He let us into his cute little, modern cottage, and then made us a salad for dinner. The couchsurfers are all so nice!
The next day we went downtown, then took a boat across the river to an island with beaches. The river water was really warm and the bottom was muddy! We had borrowed Eduardo's little cooler, so had some cold beers to sip on. It was soooo hot, and the water wasn't even that refreshing!
We got home, and chilled out, and then Eduardo started cooking an asado for us. It was amazing! He made beef ribs, which he seasoning with home-grown rosemary, and also a pork sausage and a goat black pudding sausage (blood and fat which, no, I did not eat, but Jesse loved). It really was so amazing! Then I slept and the guys stayed up chatting until 2am!
The next day, Wednesday, we were planning to go to Buenos Aires, but we didn't want to leave Rosario until we'd seen a bit more, so we decided to stay another night, but we had to go downtown and get a hostel because Eduardo had some couchsurfers from France coming that night. We had bad luck with the museums, they were closed again, and the map we got was really bad. We ended up just walking around a lot. The next morning I ran over to the monument and went up the elevator to look at the city, and then we hopped a bus to Buenos Aires!
Next up: A week in Buenos Aires!
