{"id":920,"date":"2023-12-28T13:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/?p=920"},"modified":"2023-12-28T13:00:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T13:00:12","slug":"argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/12\/28\/argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Bus Travel<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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We want to see some more of Argentina and book overnight bus tickets from Colon to Cordoba.\u00a0 The journey is an experience in and of itself.\u00a0 Spending ten hours on a bus we book the posh fully reclining seats; full of expectation of a reasonable night\u2019s kip.\u00a0 We don\u2019t book the two women in front of us who chat loudly for the entire journey, but we get them thrown in for free anyway. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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From Cordoba we hire a car.\u00a0 Arriving knackered in a busy city we go in search of the car rental place.\u00a0 Buried deep on a backstreet, it is not where I would expect to find a car rental company.\u00a0 They happily hand over the keys to a VW Gol (that\u2019s not a typo) to a tired English guy with very little experience of driving in Latin America and wave us off.\u00a0 They have more confidence in me than I have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Los Reartes<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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Somehow we survive.\u00a0 We get out of the city and trying to avoid tolls, end up on a dirt road.\u00a0 By the end of our time in the Cordoba region I will be in awe of our little Gol.\u00a0 It gets more off road action than most new Defenders will ever enjoy.\u00a0 The corrugated dirt roads, the rocky and steep inclines and boggy lakeside park ups.\u00a0 Our plucky little hire car takes them all in its stunted stride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rented house in Los Reartes gives us a base to explore from.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just Rosana and myself, we have our niece along for the ride too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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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.\u00a0 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\u2019s clearly a popular place.\u00a0 We happen upon a beach bar, more Caribbean than Argentinian.\u00a0 We stop for a cold beer and churros with a Rolling Stones soundtrack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s a cow in the garden.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t there when we went out.\u00a0 What should we do?\u00a0 Leave it there, I suppose.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Erm… Germany?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In the next door town of Villa General Belgrano I am not sure what I was looking at.\u00a0 It\u2019s like some kind of gingerbread fairytale version of Germany, more caricature than country, architected by Tim Burton. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are a long history of German immigration into Argentina and this area was heavily settled.\u00a0 As happens, they brought their culture and building techniques with them and I\u2019m sure in the beginning this was just a town that bore a resemblance to a stereotypical German town,\u00a0 But then we tourists arrived en masse and frankly, things have gotten out of hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Still, they also bought German brewing with them (the settlers, not the tourists) so it\u2019s not all bad.\u00a0 We reward our niece with a decent pint after almost killing her on the climb to the viewpoint on Pico Aleman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are many German themed restaurants serving wursts and sauerkraut, there\u2019s also more traditional Argentine food available and we go on an empanada hunt.\u00a0 With the memory of the Chivito hunt still fresh in my mind, I\u2019m not confident how this is going to go. \u00a0We find a tea festival.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Still hungry, the empanada shop seems a suitable starting place. They are declared average at best.\u00a0 At the other end of town we find a bar that offers a special of a pint and some empanadas so we figure that is worth a try and yes, they are much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If we thought that Villa General Belgrano was Disneyfied, the mountain resort of La Cumbrecita takes things to a whole new level.\u00a0 But it is forgiven because of the beautiful walking routes accessible from the town, including a fun scramble to a waterfall.\u00a0 A stunning spot but the waterfall is a trickle compared to what it can be due to lack of rainfall.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Lakes<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The Cordoba region isn\u2019t all Germanification.\u00a0 We spend time around the lakes watching the birdlife.\u00a0 We spot llamas in amongst a flock of sheep.\u00a0 They watch us for a short while before determining we’re not a threat and return to their grazing.\u00a0 We travel the winding roads around the lakes and stop at the tourist tat shops to browse. \u00a0We discover grutes, little churches at the top of hills overlooking towns, and viewpoints over the lakes. It’s all very scenic and calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which we head to Argentina’s Cordoba region on an Empanada hunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104,6,95],"tags":[105,109,35,108,112,110,97,21,98],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-argentina","category-other-travel","category-south-america","tag-argentina","tag-cordoba","tag-early-retirement","tag-la-cumbrecita","tag-los-reartes","tag-pico-aleman","tag-south-america","tag-travel","tag-uruguay"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_5013-scaled.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}