A Weekend in Córdoba

Yesterday, Monday, was a national holiday, so we were lucky enough to have a fin de semana largo (long weekend). While spending the weekend in BA always keeps me busy with new restaurants, museums and music to find, I want to see as much of Argentina while I'm here.
Hence, I took the advantage of an extra travel day and took the 10 hour bus trip to Córdoba, Argentina's second largest city, in the Sierras, the second tallest mountains in Argentina (to the Andes). Hm, I wonder if Córdoba gets tired of being second in everything...

Córdoba can be divided into two parts, the city and all of the surrounding pueblos.

Córdoba, the city, was really great. Its a city defined by the university, the oldest in Argentina. Students from all over the country go to Córdoba to study, giving the university some 30,000 students. Walking around the student district, where we were staying, it really felt like I was back in Columbus! Groups of young (early 20s) Argentines, holding books and notebooks made me slightly nostalgic for good ol' Ohio State. Unlike the universities in BA, Universidad de Córdoba has a campus where students live, and an overall set up similar to that of the universities in the USA. Also, I learned that higher education is FREE for all Argentines, and only a couple hundred dollars for foreigners. So, immigrants from many South American countries come to Córdoba to study, giving a very mixed student population.
When I go to new cities, I really feel thankful for spending so much time in BA. This is because every other city feels like a breeze to navigate when compared to BA. Córdoba was amazing to walk around- due to its mix of old and new. There was a large amount of gothic architecture mixed into the city, and it was fun to go around and point out the beautiful buildings. On Saturday there was an Artist's fair- they are really popular in this country! They are all over BA on the weekends too! My roommate Christine and I ended up getting a little gift for our host mom, Elina. We got her a small notebook with a pressed flower on the front and some Spanish quotes inside.

We went two places outside of the city: Alta Gracia and La Cumbrecita.
Alta Gracia was originally a resort town for Córdobaneses, and now its claim to fame is the Che Guevara Museum. We took a bus to Alta Gracia and found the Che museum- which was surprisingly well put together. It was in the house that Che grew up in, and although Che's involvement in revolutions in both Latin American and Africa was quite violent, Alta Gracia takes a lot of pride in being Che's home. Interestingly, "che" is how they say "hey!" in Argentina and it become Che's nickname because he used to say it frequently. People still say "che" all the time here, and it has nothing to do with Che Guevara. After the museum, we had a lovely picnic lunch of sandwiches, fruit and cookies. It was a great money-saver, and we got to enjoy the sunshine while fighting off some aggressive geese by a lake. After lunch we went to some Jesuit ruins. The Jesuits came from Spain to bring religion to the indians and set up estancias (large estates), where they missionized whomever they found. The estancia we went to was rather elaborate, and incredible sturdy despite being 300 years old. Again, I found that the estancia was arranged as a very complete museum, which was impressive. For dinner, we made a delicious quesadilla dinner in our hostel. Cheap, and filling!

The next day, we took a tour to La Cumbrecita, a small German village of about 4,000 people, about 2 hours from Córdoba. La Cumbrecita adorable! We entered the Sierras to get to the village, passing a gigantic manmade dam which held all of the water for the entire city. La Cumbrecita looked like it was a little Swiss village built into the hillside. I felt like it should have been snow-covered and full of skiers, but I definitely appreciated that sunny skies and 65 degree temperature. It was quite touristy, but I didn't mind, considering how cute it was! There were little waterfalls around and wooded areas to walk in. It really felt like I had gotten out of the city- out of BA, out of Córdoba, and into nature! After we returned to Córodoba, we took an overnight bus back to BA. When we got to BA, it was 8 am Monday morning and cold and cloudy. Not a great way to return, but getting back to my little room after a journey is a great feeling, and I was able to relax/do homework for the rest of the day.

All in all it was a great weekend! We meet some British and French people in our hostel, and we found the people from Córdoba to be very friendly! In fact, I was talking a German girl at our hostel who had lived in Córdoba for three months and now is studying in BA. I asked her how she liked BA, and she responded that she hated it! I was a little shocked by that, but she went on to say that the porteños were unfriendly, and in her months in Córdoba, she was surrounded by Argentine friends, but in BA, she can't make any. And then as I started to talk to others, I found that often, the Córdobaneses didn't care for BA and even other international travelers found BA to be cold and unfriendly!
When I began to think about it, the people in BA weren't as friendly as those in Córdoba, but I hear Americans in general aren't as warm, so its hard for me to judge porteños as cold. I guess they compare to New Yorkers, where the rest of the Argentines are the friendly midwesterners, more welcoming people. Getting different opinions about BA is one of the reasons I love traveling around the country. BA is NOT representative of all of Argentina (just as NYC is in not was representative of all of the USA), and I love getting tastes of different cities and regions, and meeting the people from different provinces.

Now its back to the semi-normal routine. Classes, homework, etc. But I still get to do it all in Buenos Aires, for which I feel very, very lucky.

**Shout out to my little brother Evan who came home from camp on Monday! Welcome back to Ohio!