Sunday, October 07, 2007

Trip Report: Cordoba, Argentina

Trip Report: Córdoba, Argentina


I´ve spend two last weeks working in Córdoba, Argentina. It was my second time there.


My first impressions: forget all you used to know about Argentina and the Argentinians. Why?


In Cordoba the spanish (in fact "castellano") has little relation to the strong and almost not understandble Buenos Aires´accent (also known as "porteño", that consists in spelling "y" and "ll" as "ch") . "Cordobes" is understandble. I am about to say that for a southerner Brazilian like me, it is more understandble than European Portuguese!

Forget the "porteña" arrogance too: Cordobean people are nice and unbelievably good hosts.

If you are male, you´ll notice another local richness: female beauty. Córdoba is a city of beautiful women.

Food: you can eat well and cheap (speciallity: lots of cow meat -“parrillada” - & italian cuisine).

The city never sleeps: by the fact that Cordoba has a huge college popullation (12% of the popullation) there are neighborhoods where the animation is non-stop. "Nueva Córdoba" is one of these "barrios" where you can find supermarkets opened 24 hours, laundry shops and, of course noisy bars, dance clubs and cafés all night long.

Archithecture: there are lot of churches, museums and even a Jesuitic site from 16th century preserved.

But there is the dark side.


Córdoba was the city where Che Guevara lived many years (he was born in Rosario) It is known that Che broke off with a beautiful and rich local heiress girl to run across the Latin America on a motorcylce. The house that Guevare lived was turned into a museum dedicated to him. In Córdoba Che is an absolute idol, where his fanatical lovers seem to know nothing about the murderer of the Caribbean.

Signs of abandon: although her beautifil architecture, Córdoba suffers from public adandon. The city deserve to be better treated by her mayors. It is dirty with deteriorated streets and sidewalks.

The last bad news is that it seems that Cristina Kirchner, Nestor ("The Penguin") Krichner´s wife will be the next Evita, ooops, President of Argentina. It is clear that if it is so, Foro de São Paulo will keep its power in Argentina...



Los Andes (from Santiago de Chile to Córdoba)








Me, in front of the Hotel in Córdoba.





Córdoba´s Artwork Fair ("Artesania")






Gardel, Argentinian symbol





Capuccino´s Church, gothic style, built in the 30´s.









Meeting: Raquel Consigli and Horacio Martínez Paz (columnists at the site “ La Historia Paralela”)





Room with the view







More photos on my Picasa´s Album :

Córdoba at Wikipedia



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks like quite a trip! It's too bad Ernesto lived there but we can't always get what we want, can we?

Anonymous said...

http://undicisettembre.dyndns.org/#misteri-da-vendere

bye.