Argentina

We want to see some more of Argentina and book overnight bus tickets from Colon to Cordoba.  The journey is an experience in and of itself.  Spending ten hours on a bus we book the posh fully reclining seats; full of expectation of a reasonable night’s kip.  We don’t book the two women in front of us who chat loudly for the entire journey, but we get them thrown in for free anyway.  

Somehow we survive.  We get out of the city and trying to avoid tolls, end up on a dirt road.  By the end of our time in the Cordoba region I will be in awe of our little Gol.  It gets more off road action than most new Defenders will ever enjoy.  The corrugated dirt roads, the rocky and steep inclines and boggy lakeside park ups.  Our plucky little hire car takes them all in its stunted stride.

A rented house in Los Reartes gives us a base to explore from.  It’s not just Rosana and myself, we have our niece along for the ride too.

From our front door we can walk along the river, along the sandy and rocky shores with plenty of tree cover to protect us from the scorching sun.  It may be the depths of winter here, but it’s hot for us northern Europeans. Scattered along the banks are beaches and picnic areas, bbq grills are ubiquitous and it’s clearly a popular place.  We happen upon a beach bar, more Caribbean than Argentinian.  We stop for a cold beer and churros with a Rolling Stones soundtrack.

There’s a cow in the garden.  It wasn’t there when we went out.  What should we do?  Leave it there, I suppose.  It seems happy enough munching on the lawn. The neighbour’s dogs are angry about the situation, but the cow is not particularly bothered by them and continues to work it’s way through the buffet that’s be planted for it.

There are a long history of German immigration into Argentina and this area was heavily settled.  As happens, they brought their culture and building techniques with them and I’m sure in the beginning this was just a town that bore a resemblance to a stereotypical German town,  But then we tourists arrived en masse and frankly, things have gotten out of hand.

Still, they also bought German brewing with them (the settlers, not the tourists) so it’s not all bad.  We reward our niece with a decent pint after almost killing her on the climb to the viewpoint on Pico Aleman.

While there are many German themed restaurants serving wursts and sauerkraut, there’s also more traditional Argentine food available and we go on an empanada hunt.  With the memory of the Chivito hunt still fresh in my mind, I’m not confident how this is going to go.  We find a tea festival.

I am a little surprised, I haven’t had a decent cup of tea since Heathrow, but it seems there is quite a culture of tea drinking here. Everyone else has bought their own tea cup, so we beg a couple of disposable cups. It’s probably for the best, had I known I would have bought a mug and offended everyone. The selection of teas is wide and we try many and while I don’t find anything resembling English Breakfast, I do find some unusual tea to buy.

If we thought that Villa General Belgrano was Disneyfied, the mountain resort of La Cumbrecita takes things to a whole new level.  But it is forgiven because of the beautiful walking routes accessible from the town, including a fun scramble to a waterfall.  A stunning spot but the waterfall is a trickle compared to what it can be due to lack of rainfall.  Overall, La Cumbrecita gives us the feeling of being in the the Black Forest and for a while we forget we are even in Argentina.