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We have learnt that good weather and a good hostel really makes a place. When we arrived in Cordoba, we had neither. Greeted by rain and clouds, English weather we hoped we had escaped, we set upon finding our hostel which I booked on a whim as it had a great deal on. Now alarm bells should've rang, why do they have a deal on? Well the room looked more like a squatters den, was pretty dirty and the hostel was located on a busy noisy street. What I'm trying to say is, firstly don't stay at hostel Baluch backpackers hostel and secondly when a deal looks too good to be true it probably is.
Accommodation aside (we changed hostels the next day to Aldea hostel), Cordoba is Argentinas second biggest city, known for its nightlife and universities, with beautiful colonial churches and building but still a bit rough around the edges and damn right dirty in others (we saw a rat the size of a small dog run across the main square). We hadn't met any travellers who had been there but we stopped en route to Salta to break up the journey. Aside from being a university city, Cordoba is also known as the place of Che Guevera's childhood (it's actually in a place called Alta Gracia just outside). The house, which is quite small and in the middle of suburbia has been turned into a museum celebrating his life and was very interesting. It covered his younger years, where asthma had crippled his early activities, through to the motorcycle diaries and his road-trips across South America, up to the liberation of Cuba and freedom fighting in Bolivia. All in all a very informative and worthwhile experience.
While in Cordoba we met up with a guy called Gorki, a great guy and a Londoner on a months holiday who we had bumped into in both Valparaiso and Mendoza. After a few drinks and sampling the nightlife we decided that the next day we would go trekking in the mountains outside Cordoba with the promise of seeing condors and beautiful scenery. Up early and bus tickets successfully purchased we got on the bus, fell asleep, missed our stop (no thanks to our driver) and ended up in the middle of nowhere, only an hour and a half past where we originally planned to get off. Wanting to make the most of a bad situation we embarked on a journey of sorts taking in a small canyon where we had lunch and a unfruitful walk to a supposed condor viewing point made all the more interesting by the looks of the locals at our varying degrees of trekking fashion (ranging from jeans, short shorts, heavy military jackets and leggings).
Once back in Cordoba there was time for one last night of taking in the bars. Since it is a university town, the nightlife feels very uni orientated (imagine fallowfield days in Manchester). As a result we felt a little old and with backpacking clothes on a little underdressed. After our days endeavours we called it an early night ready for our bus to Salta and the north of Argentina. Overall Cordoba has been an interesting experience and although we haven't enjoyed it as much as other parts of Argentina it gave us an insight into a different part of the country. No pretending though we will not be back.
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Shane Pretty sure that's where Keelan ended up in a cell after his birthday drinks.