BootsnAll Travel Network



From Salta to Cordoba

I finally decided it was time to leave Salta after spending 10 days there.  After 8 months of travelling it was nice to stay somewhere for a bit longer than normal and not to be constantly packing and moving on.  I got to know the city quite well and i think the Spanish lessons I had there have helped.
From Salta I travelled south to the small town of Cafayate, a big wine producing area in the hills.  The bus journey there was only suppossed to take 3 hours and for once I was looking forward to it as it passes through a gorge with amazing scenery.  It took a bit longer than planned though as we were travelling on a dirt road and a little bit of rain in the morning had flooded parts of the road.  But I arrived eventually and then stayed there for a couple of days.  The first day I went back to the gorge for a guided walk around the cliffs, cave and rock formations carved in the sandstone by water and wind.  The second day I went to Quilmes a prehispanic fort in the hills near the town and then went for a walk along the valley to a waterfall.  For once the many knee deep river crossings were a welcome relief as it was a really hot day.  And when I went back into the town I tried the local speciality of wine flavoured ice cream, I can´t see it catching on anywhere else.  In the evening I went out with 3 Argentinian girls I met in the hostel and tried the local wine, which was a big improvement on the ice cream.
From Cafayate I carried on heading south to Tucaman, where I just stayed a night so I could get a bus to Cordoba the next day.  I had heard on the news that farmers had been protesting for the last couple of weeks about increases in taxes, but in the north it didn´t have any affect.  But here I found out that the farmers road blocks had been causing chaos with many buses getting stuck or cancelled.  Luckily the day I went they were letting buses through so we were only a bit delayed arriving in Cordoba.  When I arrived at the hostel I met a lot of people who had been stuck there days trying to get a bus and heard many stories of prople getting stuck on buses for more than 12 hours and then just ending up back where they started.  Also found that here the strikes have been starting to affect fresh food supplies making it more difficult than normal to get fruit and veg.
I have spent the last few days in Cordoba.  Although it has been raining almost constantly since I got here, I have looked around the main sites in the city, a lot of colonial and Jesuit buildings and churches, a few museums.  Yesterday I went to Alta Gracia, a small town near here where Che Guevara grew up.  In his house there was a really interesting museum and photo gallery that covered his whole life.  Cordoba is also a big student city with 7 universities, so the nightlife is a big thing here, the hostel even employs someone just to take people out to the bars and clubs everynight.  At the moment the city is also really busy beause the world rally championship is being held here.  The other night when it started was absolute chaos and even walking anywhere in the city was difficult.  The cars were doing a parade around the centre, thousnads of people were on the streets to watch that, there were farmers demonstrating in the streets and the roads were still open to normal traffic.  I tried to go out for a bit but you could hardly move because it was so busy.
Tonight I am moving on to San Juan, a town near Mendoza.

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