córdoba and la cumbre

wow, this weekend flew by! i don't have class on tuesdays, so i had an extra-long weekend to travel around and spend a few days with my host family!! this weekend my friends and i made the 10.5 hr bus trip to córdoba, the second largest city in argentina (after buenos aires of course) for a day and then traveled another 2 hours to la cumbre (which may be one of the the smallest cities in argentina, with only about 7500 inhabitants). we started off our journey on thursday night after class, around 10:30pm. our bus left mendoza promptly, and after being circled in the bus terminal by a sketchy man who was obviously out to rob/mug us, we were on the road to córdoba! we arrived in the city at 7:15am on friday morning and because it was pitch black out (it's still winter here!) we got two taxis to take us to our hostel, which we had booked via hostelworld.com the night before. so we get to the hostel; tired, hungry, and ready to put our stuff down. however, hostelworld.com had not confirmed our reservation with the actual hostel, and it was already full. the lady at the front desk was nice enough to call another hostel a few blocks away and give us cab money to get there. we arrive at the next hostel and get a room for the six of us. by this time it's only about 8:30 in the morning and we were all about ready to rip each others heads off from frustration, hunger, and lack of sleep.

hostel, round 1

our room, sahhh cozy!

church

in the streets of córdoba, finally

around 9 or 10am we made it out of the hostel, to a cafe, and then into the city of córdoba! it was beautiful, and incredibly refreshing to know that we had a whole day in front of us as well as the fact that we were over a day's drive back to mendoza. we walked around the city like the american tourists we are, stopping at many of the churches that are located in the city and window shopping.

pedestrians only street

beautiful architecture

we stopped in a museum fo free which featured mostly eva perón, but also several photos of argentinian miners

and dresses from various centuries

main plaza

as we struggled through the day, we decided to make the best of it and create a point system for all of the crazy slash stupid things that we did. for example, if one of us talked to someone in spanish in broad daylight, 5 points were awarded to that person. if you spoke in english to someone on the street, 10 points were docked. in the restaurant where we ate lunch, cat got 2 points because she ate a thing of chorizo (basically like a bratwurst) in one bite....

beautiful churches line the streets of córdoba. this one happened to be one of the most colorful!

for dinner, we picked up some fresh vegetables from the fruit stand right next to the hostel and had pasta and sauteed veggies for dinner, along with malbec, the most quintessential wine of argentina. we also met a bunch of people in our hostel, many of whom are visiting mendoza in the upcoming week! we had to be out of the hostel by 10am the next morning, so after an early wakeup, we finally were back on the streets of córdoba. after walking around for a few hours, we decided to take an afternoon bus to la cumbre, a small town about 2 hours away. we didn't have time to grab lunch before our bus at 1:30pm, so we drove to la cumbre on empty stomachs....bad idea. by the time we got there, everyone was starving. the only thing that kept us sane was the atmosphere...the air was much cleaner and fresher, as we found ourselves actually in the middle of nowhere. we barged into a restaurant (one of the 10 in the town) with all of our bags and had the best meal i've had since i've been here.

la cumbre! the downtown block

tired, hungry, thirsty, and delirious?

the best pizza i've ever had

asado and ensalada mixta

we found our hostel after lunch and after relaxing for a bit, decided to go exploring and find an artisan fair, which was supposed to be close to the town of la cumbre. we stopped in town and grabbed some gelato before heading out into the farmland. by this time it was around 5 or 6pm so we figured we'd have an hour or so to find the fair and look around before it got dark. of course everything went wrong. we started walking, and thinking that the fair was just around this corner on a dirt road, were being goofy and delirious from lack of sleep. after walking for 45 minutes, we figured that around every corner we would find the fair. we finally got to a fork in the road where there was a sign for "el camino artesenal", the artesenal road. we took it and spiraled downwards and then into the mountains. it was still light out, and even when we asked for directions, the lady told us it would still be open and that it was "just a few more minutes ahead". famous last words. we kept walking until we got to a little shack literally in the middle of nowhere. we had been walking for the past hour and a half and it was getting dark. we stopped in the shack, and discovered that the owner sold all sorts of canned vegetables, olives, dulce de leche (mixed with coconut, chocolate, and anything else you can imagine), and books. we asked him to call us a taxi, but eerily, his telephone wires had been cut that day. so we walked in the dark back to a random restaurant about a half mile from the shack in the pitch black. the lady there called us a "taxi". 10 minutes later, this free candy car without a passenger side window rolls up. all 6 of us pile in and are praying for our lives because the driver is so sketchy. somehow we drive back to town (which we later learn is 10km away from the shack we first went to) and make it back to our hostel.

our hostel, round 2!

view from the front porch

porch area

after gelato, before getting lost...

little did we know, we were spiraling into the mountains of la cumbre..

...and it was getting dark...

running back to the restaurant

after showering and wondering how the balls we made it back to la cumbre alive, we went out to dinner to fill up on real food. we went to bed by midnight and i was passed out in my bed before the lights were off. the next day, we went exploring!!