Lost in Cordoba again.

We spent yesterday mostly being lost in Cordoba, says Rhia.

I have to admit, we wasted a great deal of the morning on terrible coffee and sending back some stuff to Canada. The post office here, if your parcel weighs more than 2kg, is a bit like the twelve tasks of Asterix. First we went to the guy to weigh it to confirm it had to go through customs (we already knew this). Then we waited for the customs guy to open some other parcels. Then the customs guy poked at the stuff we were sending. Then they sent us to the packing centre, where a completely blind guy wrapped the parcel. Then we had to go back to the weighing guy and give him a ridiculous amount of money, most of which went to cover the 45 seconds the customs guy spent on the parcel. Oh dear.

We looked at a few historic buildings from the outside, doign minimal walking in circles, and then headed out to this park where there was a fine arts museum. Only we somehow ended up on one street instead of another, and a hell of a way out of where we wanted to be - though we did find the university campus. When we did eventually turn up the museum, it was under construction and entirely closed. We had some beer instead.

Then the beer place was changing so we just wandered some more then meandered up to a hostel to arrange something out of the city for today. We had another drink at a slick restaurant attached to another artsy place which we opted not to explore, instead aiming for a nice lie down.

We ended up at a place serving Salteña food for dinner, which is sort of ironic, because we´re boarding the bus for Salta tonight. After all that wandering in 30+ degree weather, and the requisite bottle of wine (a cab franc, instead of malbec!) we were pooped. Plus we needed to get up for today´s adventures, so we collapsed into sleep around midnight.

I don´t seem to sleep well in Cordoba. Could be the two-inch-high pillows, or the rock hard mattress, or the traffic noise, but still. It´s no fun to wake up unrested two days in a row!

I was in good cheer regardless, because once we were packed, with bags stowed behind the hotel desk, we headed back up to the hostel from the day before to pick up with our Trail Riding guide. We piled into a jeep, picked up two irish boys along the way (there were supposed to have been four, but one was still sleeping it off and the other missing at the crucial moment) and drove off to the outskirts of the city.

About 15 minutes beyond the city limits, we found the prettiest little farm and proceeded to mount a fivesome of beautiful horses. We rode along a river, and along some roads, and it was just nice to be on a horse again. It´s been years and years. The scenery was incredible, and I really enjoyed the experience of being on horseback. I´ve had mixed experiences in the past, but an obedient horse is a joyful thing.

When we returned to the ranch they had huge slabs of barbecued pork ready for us, and for the first time since we´ve been in Argentina, I ate with real appetite!


We´ve been very sweatily wandering the city for a couple of hours now, and have taken refuge in this internet cafe as protection from the sun. I suppose we´ll wander out shotly to kill an hour or so before having an early (for Argentina) supper around 7:30, collecting our bags, and heading for the bus station to board our charriot to Salta.

Salta´s looking to be just amazing, and the bus ride oughtn´t to be terrible for 13 hours. We should be able to sleep through most of it.

We´re doing our best to find somewhere to upload photos, but a lot of machines don´t have CD drives, and it´s hit or miss whether we´re carrying the camera cable, and doubly so whether it will work if we are.

Keep the comments and emails coming, really! It makes us so happy, even if we don´t manage to reply to all of them promptly!