It's been a month since my last blog and the reason for this is that not a great deal has changed in the last month. Mendozian life continues much as it always has though with considerably more layers being worn as it's winter over here. That's the problem with living in what is essentially a desert, it's scorching hot in the summer and absolutely freezing in the winter, we've re-named our room the ice box as we are utterly convinced it's a couple of degrees colder in there than it is outside. The other major event that has had an impact on our lives is the Americas Cup which Argentina is hosting this year. One of the stadiums being used for the tournament is the stadium here in Mendoza which means the city is periodically flooded with Chileans, Mexicans, Peruvians etc.... Makes for a crowded city but gives a good party atmosphere on a night out after the games. Rugby is much the same as always though we didn't have a match this weekend as the Uruguayan football team were using the club as a training ground before the game.

The main reason for this blog was to tell everyone about the trip we took to Córdoba a few days ago. We decided life was getting a little mundane and samey in Mendoza and we should get out and see a bit more of Argentina. Córdoba is a province to the North East of Mendoza (as you can probably see from the map) and we'd heard it was a nice city with lots of tourist things to do so we packed our bags and set off on the 12 hour bus journey. We arrived at 7 o'clock in the morning and armed with a map and my fairly awful navigation skills we decided to walk to the hostel to get our bearings of the city slightly. Córdoba is very similarly designed to Mendoza though with a few more colonial building and narrow streets. It has a central peatornal the runs to the main square, la plaza San Martín (of course because frankly they name everything after him) much the same as Mendoza. Our hostel was located fairly close to the centre and we found it without too many difficulties. It was a real back-packers hostel with people from all over the world including more French (o the joys of sitting there like a spare part while Ben chats away) and an American guy who was on some sort of spiritual life changing bike trek across South America..... Anyway we were feeling like hardcore tourists so we grabbed a camera and went to the main square to see what there was to do. Facing onto the square is Argentina's oldest cathedral and government building, which had a museum attached, so we spent the morning checking those out and feeling rather cultured and good about ourselves for doing so. We then went on 'an authentic English tour bus' which basically meant they'd ordered a red open top bus from Bristol with the driver on the right not the left. Built in 1973 it wasn't the worlds most comfortable trip but we saw all of Córdoba and even managed another church. We spent the night in a few bars in the city which we discovered is quite a student dominated town then went home completely shattered.

The next day we decided to go to the park in the north of the city which was designed by the same guy that designed the large park here in Mendoza as well. Unsurprisingly it was a similar design and we had a really good mean sitting outside one of the restaurants. We'd seen a zoo in the park on the open top bus ride the previous day so we spent a couple of hours checking out that and feeling slightly odd as the only two people there who didn't have kids with them. I'm not sure trying to attach ourselves to random groups of kids in an attempt to fit in helped or just made us appear a little bit creepy. Either way there was a surprisingly good water show with a walrus playing basketball so it was well worth the visit. There was a theme park in the park as well so we had a bit of fun going on the few rides in there. In the afternoon we decided to go on a horse riding trek which the hostel offered which was good fun if horrifically expensive in hindsight. We had to get the bus back the next day so we had a few drinks and got chatting to some people in the hostel before calling it a night and going to sleep.

In terms of what's coming up for us in the next few weeks we're planning to spend some more time here continuing with the normal run of things and then in our last month head down to Buenos Aries and Iguaza falls.