Poi Polloi

After our lazy days in the countryside we made a bee line for the big city. After stopping briefly in Tucuman (where the girl at the hostel advised us to move on cause there was nothing to do there!) we made our way to Argentina´s second biggest city, Córdoba. We arrived to find tumbleweeds rolling through the main streets while the sounds of our footsteps echoed from the buildings. Yep you guessed it, we´d arrived at siesta time on a Saturday afternoon and most of the shops wouldn´t open again until Monday morning. That night after I found us a really sweet hostel to stay in, we wandered across a very cool arts market nestled within a block of boutique clothing stores and fancy wine bars. This was pretty much the trendiest place we´d been in South America.

On Sunday we figured we would join the rest of the population in having a chilled out day. We took a picnic lunch (including our giant block of cheese) to the huge San Martín park and lazed about while people peddaled boats in the lake and kids played hide-and-go-seek. It was also a chance to delve into our hippy sides and show off our limited poi skills. Afterwards we went to the beautiful fine arts museum to see a somewhat overrated and small Picasso exhibition as well as the more interesting local permanent displays. Also while in Córdoba we chanced upon a spooky 18th century former Jesuit crypt that had been rediscovered beneath a main road in the 80´s.

We celebrated Tessa´s birthday in Córdoba exploring the mazes of malls and shops in the main shopping district and later went out for a fancy-ish dinner followed by some drinks in the bar district by the river with Hannes, a german guy we met at our sweet hostel.

We did a bunch of day trips from Córdoba to smaller towns in the area. The first of these was to a town called Alta Gracia which had a small museum in the former house of its most famous resident Che Guevara. I wanted to get a picture of us on the famous motorcycle (although I might´ve had to rename the blog) but they had obviously seen us coming and it was rigged to the teeth with alarms. The museum was an interesting run through his life and death (another famous person done in by the Bolivian military) and included some letters he had written to his family showing just what an intense wee commie he was. Che is a bit of a hero in South America, his clichéd face is on t-shirts and backpacks everywhere, there are even simpson knock-offs "Che Homero".

The resort town of Carlos Paz was in fact pretty sleepy and quiet being midweek during the "low season". As on Sunday we just spent time by the, quite pretty lake working on our poi skills and afterwards got icecreams that were as big as our heads (never eat anything bigger than your head!!). We also visited one of the towns premium attractions, a giant cuckoo clock, designed by two engineers (need I say more?). This garish monster had been pulling the crowds for 50 odd years!

Our last mission took us to the town of La Falda and, feeling a bit more active and because there was no lake to laze by (only a grimy duck pond), we hiked up to the top of a hill overlooking the area. We battled high winds at the top to practice pois before heading back to town for a hot Submarino (hot milk with a whole chocolate bar dunked in).