Cordoba
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
89
133
Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
Cordoba,
Argentina
Friday, June 17, 2005
Our hostel was The Tango Hostel and had been recommended by lots of people. It would be lovely but it was a party hostel - only livening up at 10 (or later) and we sadly had a room off the main area so it was far too loud for us in the early hours of the morning - but the bed was very comfy. It also suffered from TMI (too many Israelis) with several inconsiderate loud demanding people spoiling the atmosphere a little. Anyway, we headed up to the old part of town first and started off with a tour of the San Martin square - looking at the mass produced San Martin statue (almost every city has a San Martin square and a similar statue) and went into the cathedral. We then headed for the real highlight of Cordoba - the Jesuit block which contains the oldest church in Argentina, the oldest University, a monastery and an old school. We had a guided tour and started off in the beautiful church
01 Cordoba
. The church has 3 doors on the front reflecting the old segregation - the large door to the main church, the door to the chapel used by the Indians and the door to the chapel used by the Spaniards. Inside the church was dominated by the spectacular barrel vaulted timber ceiling - designed by a former ship builder in the 1700s and decorated by natives. In the late 1800s the church had a Baroque makeover and the walls and finishes are quite gaudy. They have an original native built altarpiece too. The guide then took us into the private chapel of the monks which was even more stunning - an original native painted ceiling made from bone and leather and a magnificent alterpiece. The walls were still white like they would be in the olden days and it was just magnificent. We were allowed behind the altarpiece to the sacresty and saw how the altarpiece was made from behind. We then got a tour of parts of the University - the graduation room (part of the church building) was superb but we`d hate to go through the 3 or 4 days of thesis interrogation that went on here. We then got to see part of the library which contained rare Jesuit books which they had brought out with them in the 1750s. One of the most revered books was a 10 volume bible which was written in something like 8 different languages. After the tour we headed through the city to find the Jesuit Crypt. In 1989 some telecom workers found the crypt which had previously been forgotten about after the demolition of the redundant church above it. It has an eerie history and we learnt about what happened to cholera victims and "normal" Jesuit remains. We then headed across town to find a fabulous old colonial house that has been well preserved in places and reconstructed in others - it originally belonged to the Marquis Of Sobremonte. They tried to explain how a colonial family would live in those times and gave you a good sense of the period as you went through 25 or so rooms. After a snack we headed down to Sarmiento Park after reading good things in the guide book - and we didn`t like it one bit
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. We got out asap but maybe we just entered at the wrong section. Very poor. We failed to get tickets for the Argentina v Italy rugby match but then we only found out about it a few hours before kick off.Day 231 Saturday 18/06/05 Cordoba & Alta Gracia
We took a local bus out to Alta Gracia - a lovely little town with a Swiss feel to it. Our first stop was to the Ernesto "Che" Guevara museum. He and his family lived here for something like 10 years in his childhood - hoping the mountain air would provide respite from his asthma. It`s a well done museum - a video in English to start (albeit with some maybe overly fond memories of strong independent Che as a child - how much is...em ... a little made up?) and different rooms showing the life of Che - from his motorized bicycle and motorbike on which he toured Argentina to Cuban banknotes from when he was the governor of the Bank of Cuba. There were some wonderful photographs of him from his childhood up to his death. It was Che Guevara week here and we would have loved to sit in the round table discussion that night with his old friends reminiscing about him but our Spanish would never have been up to it. We then headed back into the town centre and visited the superbly preserved Jesuit Farm (Estancia)
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. It dates back to the 1650s and has been turned into a museum showing the history of the Jesuits and the history of the house - with rooms decked out in the periods of different owners. The best room was the toilet where you learned how they cleverly designed (and hid the detail) first floor toilets - they were only found again by accident in the 1970s during some renovation works. While we waited for the bus we watched the antique motorbike rally which was being held in memory of Che. We caught the bus back to town and wandered round a huge Artisans market which actually contained some nice stuff - not just the usual tat.Day 232 Sunday 19/06/05 Cordoba & Carlos Paz - Mendoza
We headed out to Carlos Paz which is a favourite holiday resort for Argentinians - with a very alpine Swiss feel to it. There are lovely mountains round the town - so we`re told, we didn`t see them as there was a heavy mist all day over the hills. Two of this town´s main highlights are a cross on the hills and a chairlift up to one of the tallest mountains - neither of which could we do because of the mist. That only left the 3rd highlight - a very popular giant cuckoo clock. We got there on the hour and instead of the brilliant cuckoo we were expecting we got a bit of a strangled noise with a fairly poor bird. Ah well. We amused ourselves by watching the locals excitedly taking pictures of each other under the cuckoo clock. After a nice lunch (though they brought Stewart a steak thinking that he couldn`t just be having omelette - surely these strangers didn`t mean just one steak??) we got a bus back to town and went to see "Mr & Mrs Smith" - with a lovely chocolate mousse cake as dessert. We caught an overnight bus which left Mendoza at 10.45. After a game of bingo (yes - on the bus) we settled down and waited for the video to start............ and it turned out to be "Starsky & Hutch" which brought memories flooding back from our time with Rob in Melbourne.
