Buenos Aires - my favourite city.
Buenos Aires is like an old friend - but it wasn't always that way. The first time I visited Buenos Aires I was jet-lagged and groggy from trans-Pacific flying. Bursting at the seams, BA was brash and arrogant. The road from the airport was jammed with cars, trucks, buses and taxis, all of them blasting their horns in a deafening, demented, symphony; none of them constrained by the rules of the road. In the back of the cab I clung to the seat belt wishing I'd never left home.
10 am Wednesday morning - I think - somewhere in the world at least!
We are on QF28 approaching Santiago, Chile. At 1:15 pm this afternoon we left Sydney. We flew for more than 12 hours and arrived half way across the world three hours before we left home. We have a five hour layover before we connect to Córdoba, Argentina - what a waste of those extra hours. AND there is trouble brewing over our bags.
Welcome to Cordoba - we have lost your bags.
It is not that I have anything against the back row of aeroplanes. We have spent a lot of time in them. Up the back, on bumpy flights, I tend to get airsick. I've only actually thrown-up a couple of times - usually over David - but I can get pretty distressed and that tends to make the people around me nervous. I accept that everyone should take their turn in the cheap seats. The problem is; David and I have had far too many turns. We have done our time and paid our dues. Let somebody else sit in the crappy seats for a while.
Cordoba - things always look better in the morning.
We head out from the hotel on foot. We know better than to tangle with the problem of parking in the inner-city and we have discovered that the spare tyre in our rental car is flat. The car company has promised to come to the hotel and change it.
Santa Catalina, Marcello and the Jesuits.
In 1599 the Jesuits arrived in Cordoba. They came south from Alto Peru, present day Bolivia, in a wave of proselytising, empire-building and farming. Their reign lasted until 1767 when they were expelled from all the Americas during a world-wide suppression of the order. The Argentinian Jesuits have their revenge now though with one of their own on the Papal Throne.
Rustic charm at five hundred dollars a night.
Many years ago, when we were young, David and I travelled through the French countryside staying in 'one star' hotels. They had rustic charm by the bucket load. They also had intermittent plumbing, bed-bugs, and bathrooms down the hall - but they were cheap and we were young. We quickly out-grew them.
Taking it slowly in Salta
David has a cold. As a result we are taking it slowly in Salta - probably not a bad thing. We often make the mistake of spending too much time on excursions away from the place we are staying in and never seeing the immediate neighbourhood.
Tucumán and the million-moth highway.
David wants to see the true Argentinian countryside. I'm not so sure. Although we have done road trips here before they have been mostly on our way to and from Chile, never in the vastness of the country's interior.
We know very little about the condition of the roads. We do know there are many unpaved roads, even on reasonably well travelled routes. We also know that suicidal over-takes are common and directional signs range from average to very poor. It is not uncommon to arrive at an intersection and find no road signs at all.