Blogger Neglect

It´s been altogether too long since I updated this! The continuing difficulties with getting photos uploaded have sort of put me off blogging. That said, I´ve been having fun. I´m off to the airport to leave Argentina in about forty-five minutes. Since the last update, I´ve visited Mendoza, Cordoba, and Buenos Aires again, and done a great deal of walking around in cities as well as one day´s nature walk, the Quebrada del Condorito in the Sierra de Cordoba. The latter trip made me feel like an old South America hand because I hailed a bus from the side of a deserted road to get back into town. My time in Mendoza was spent doing a day of napping (it is possible to sleep on overnight buses, but it doesn´t really feel like enough), a day of wine tours, and two days of wandering happily around the city and getting terribly lost in public parks. Even with the Andes to the west, I could not get out of the park in Mendoza to save my life, and wound up stopping a pair of passing cyclists for directions. There was another pair of people I was happy to see in Mendoza, though: Lucy and Dave, the young British couple I´d met in Buenos Aires my first week, were also in town and so we got together for dinner and caught up on the adventures we´ve been having. It was lovely to see familiar, friendly faces.

As warned, I liked Cordoba more than I was expecting to and stayed for four nights instead of moving on. I wandered around the various historical sites - there are two really lovely churches in Cordoba, and a bunch of Jesuit buildings that have been designated as a World Heritage Site. There is also a small town called Alta Gracia, just outside of Cordoba, where one Ernesto Guevara spent much of his childhood. The family home there is now a museum devoted to his life and doings. The exhibits are pretty matter-of-fact in their adulation of El Che, but he was an impressive person in many ways, at the centre of some of the most significant revolutionary movements of the 20th century. Visiting the site made me want to learn more about him and the times he lived in. In fact, this whole trip has made me want to dig into Latin American history a bit. The fallout from the government repression in Argentina is still going on, with debates over reconciliation and punishment still evident in posters on the streets demanding accountability for the crimes. So there are two additions to my reading list once I get home.

I didn´t spend all of my time in Cordoba doing worthy and intelligent things, though. It is also a university town par excellence, having seven universitiesm and the nightlife is thus pretty hopping. I went out with some people from my hostel on the Saturday I was there. The club, Chateau Carreras, was lively even when we left at 5:30 a.m., and played Argentine national rock as well as Cordoban-style cuarteto music, cumbia, and (mysteriously) Shania Twain´s smash hit, Man, I Feel Like A Woman. One of the guys from the hostel was on vacation from Buenos Aires, so he explained the music to us - I was quite glad he was along, because I wouldn´t have had a clue what I was listening to, aside from the Shania.

My last stop was a night in Buenos Aires before my plane tonight. Yesterday I was just wandering around in Palermo, eating ice cream from Chocorisimo (the strawberry-lemon is sensational), but at night I roped a Brit from the hostel into going out for a tango lesson. I liked it a lot, and would definitely go again, because it would be nice to get competent. But I am jealous of Ben the Brit, because he is in BA for longer and can go to this same club again. Once the floor opened up after the lesson, it was full of gifted amateurs and tons of fun to watch. We left at 3 a.m. and there was no sign that the dance floor would be shutting down anytime soon. People were completely caught up in the dance, no matter who their partner was - the very young and rather old danced together, dress shirts and fancy skirts with jeans and t-shirts. It was extremely cool.

Because I kept delaying moving on in order to explore Mendoza and Cordoba, Iguazu Falls and Rosario both got cut out of the itinerary. The natural wonders of Patagonia will just have to suffice for this trip. Plus, it´s kind of nice to be cold and I cannot honestly say that I would have wanted to be (a) on buses for two out of three days, and (b) in a seriously tropical climate at the end of summer. Anyway, this is all a lesson that longer periods of time will be necessary for future travels!