Santa Fe
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
88
133
Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
Santa Fe,
Argentina
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
We have heard some good news about the campaign of the "Mothers of the Disappeared", whose weekly demonstration we saw in Buenos Aires last week. Argentina's Supreme Court has ruled that amnesty laws protecting former military officers are unconstitutional. The judgement clears the way for prosecutions of officials suspected of human rights abuses during military rule between 1976 and 1983. An estimated 30,000 people were "disappeared" during the so called "Dirty War" and this decision is a big step towards finally prosecuting those responsible. In the case now before the Supreme Court the police officer accused of murdering a couple is also accused of taking their daughter as his own. We headed out for a lovely breakfast in a very swanky place called Las Delicios - mmmmm. We then headed down through the main shopping area towards the old centre of town which is now south of the new modern centre
01 Santa Fe Church
. We went into a colonial church on the main square which was beautiful - still mainly white walls as per the original colonial design, a lovely timber ceiling and two new wings with gilded confessional booths. We then headed for the cathedral on another side of the square and there was a mass in progress - nowhere near as nice as the colonial church - very "busy" in terms of colour etc. We then headed to an old building just off the square that belonged to some aristocratic family called Lopez. There was a good collection of colonial furniture. We then headed to another "old" building - this time more reconstruction than original - the guy on the door was sooooo friendly and chatted to us for a while and tried to find an English brochure for us. They even let us stay inside after the closing time while we finished looking round. The highlight of the museum was the gaucho (cowboy) chair made entirely out of.........cow! Formed with bones and leather strings. Itīs siesta time now and as with other places the museums etc shut down for 3 - 4 hours. How obscene is that, especially when itīs winter. So there isn`t much to do and even the churches were locked up. We wandered through the old sector, found a closed church and then found an amazing old house. It was hidden behind modern housing for ages and eventually they demolished the new frontage and exposed the old building. It`s lovely. They have offices inside the building and someone heard us outside and let us inside the two main rooms for a peek - superb woodwork. We headed back to the main square and had lunch in a famous Santa Fe restaurant where they make very famous little pastry biscuits. We then went back to the hotel for a while before coming back to the convent/ museum/church after the siesta was over. It was a lovely church (again mainly white with lots of gilding) and the museum was nice too - albeit only religious art. The building itself was the highlight - lots of old timber beams. That evening we had an average meal in Circulo Italiano - with the highlight being a Trapiche Malbec wine which was divine and which only cost 3 euro
02 Sante Fe Museum
. On the way back to the hotel we bought another bottle in the supermarket. Sadly we haven`t been able to contact ex-neighbours of the Picketts in Ireland.Day 229 Thursday 16/06/05 Santa Fe - Cordoba
We headed out to the Farm La Esmeralda (Granja La Esmeralda) - a fairly rundown (but still alright) zoo/farm which contained all sorts of birds, howler monkeys, more cute armadillos, deer, capybara, wolves, leopards, tapirs and a puma in hiding (in its house) which was what we actually wanted to see. At lunchtime we boarded our bus to Cordoba and arrived there about 6pm. We dumped our stuff and headed into a large shopping mall to get a bite to eat before seeing "Batman Begins".
