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We're now 3 days into the tour and have hit the road in Amber, our overland truck. The last couple of days in BA were great fun and I definitely hadn't seen the best parts of the city when I wrote my last post. I spent that afternoon wandering around the area called Recoleta and visited the cemetery where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried in the Duarte family tomb - a really beautiful place that was almost like it's own little city with Plazas, little narrow alleys and the most ornate buildings that were the family tombs.
I then headed back to the hostel where I met up with the rest of my tour group and our guides. There are 12 of us in total...7 girls and 6 guys ranging from 21-30. Everyone is really nice and feels like I've known them for longer then 3 days already!
We hit BA for dinner and drinks that night and went to another Parilla where I had my first Bife de Chorizo (rib eye steak) which was delicious, along with some more Malbec! It wasn't a crazy first night but was good fun and we still didn't get back to the hostel until 2am.
The next day was our last in BA and I spent the day walking around the city with Georgie, an Ozzie girl in the group, who I was sharing a room with. We literally walked miles and discovered Puerto Madero (the modern port area), the colourful La Boca (see the pics of the cute painted buildings), the trendy Palermo (where we had some amazing ice cream and I couldn't resist buying a stunning silk dress!) and finished off chilling out in one of the parks in the Palermo area, soaking up the sun and eating Choripan (barbecued chorizo in a bread roll with sauce - yummy!).
On our final night in BA we went to a Tango show which was incredible. It was in Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in Argentina. The dancers were amazing and we shared cheese platters and more red wine. We then had an early night as it was an early start (6am) the next morning.
Yesterday we hit the road in our overland truck and had an 11hr drive to Cordoba, our next stop and the 2nd largest city in Argentina. The journey was fairly uneventful and went quicker than anticipated. About halfway through the journey we came across a pretty bad traffic accident, a lorry had managed to completely overturn. Rather than sit and wait for the road to be cleared all the cars just went off road and drove around it!
The Dragoman overland trucks are pretty cool and very well equipped - we were given a tour of all the compartments that store the cooking equipment, camping gear, food, tables & chairs and there's even a safe in the floor of the truck that we have to call the 'pub' so that locals don't know it's there. We're each going to be given different jobs so that everything runs smoothly and we're in 'harmony' as Dave (aka Captain Jack) our tour guide likes to call it!
We arrived in Cordoba at about 6pm and are staying in a very cool hostel in the centre of the city in mixed dorms. We showered and changed then met for beers on the roof terrace before heading out for dinner as a group. Went to another great Parilla and enjoyed some more Malbec (are you spotting a trend!?) then half of us headed out to a local club and had a pretty messy night out. It was lots of fun and we weren't back in the hostel until 4am this morning.
We woke up today to torrential rain so ended up having a very lazy start before heading to a local Empanada (pasty type things in lots of different flavours) takeaway for breakfast/lunch. The rain finally stopped late in the afternoon so we were able to get out and explore Cordoba and discovered a massive arts and crafts Market in a really quaint and trendy area. We also found a great rooftop restaurant that we're planning to head to for dinner tonight.
Tomorrow we hit the road again but it's only a short drive to an Estancia in the hills where we'll be camping. The plan is to do some horse riding, wine tasting and one night we'll have an Asado (an Argentinian traditional barbecue). Apparently the Estancia make their own wine so we're going to be enjoying lots of that by the sounds of things!!!
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