Waking in Cordoba, the sun was strong and after breakfast in the hostel we walked to Placa San Martin.
Argentina’s currency is covered with suave 18th century military types in elaborate dress uniform and hair carefully curled for the portrait. It’s hard to believe that this bunch of effete looking dandies fought tooth and nail to expel the Spanish over lords. General San Martin occupies the pedestal with Belgrano, Rosas and Albergue and every town honours them with squares and boulevards named after them.
We wandered aimlessly until we bumped into Bert and Vanessa outside Paseo De Buen Pastor, the town hall were a political/religious/trade union rally was in the process of unfolding. Balloons were being filled and the microphones were being tested. It was lunch time and so opting for the nearest, we dived into the Black Sheep for pork and tartes before heading for the Science museum.
After a few good photos of Clare standing next to the fossilised skeletons of various scary looking super-predators, we exited via the gift shop and headed for the park, passing first a memorial to The Disappeared. Pinochet saw to the disappearance of thousands of innocents during his reign of terror. It was only the silent demonstration of the mothers of the disappeared outside the Paseo De Buen Pastor that awakened public awareness and spurred Margaret Thatcher to grant Pinochet best friend status that helped stifle future attempts to prosecute him.
The Paseo hosts photos of some of the disappeared in memoriam. They are dowdy housewives, stunning beauties, children, husbands and parents, all lost but preserved in black and white family snaps pasted crudely to the concrete supports of the Paseo.
On a lighter note Paseo hosted a display of a guacho pilgrimage to Cordoba ending in a rally later in the day. Dozens of spectacular shots of a crowd of exuberant cowboys riding through the Argentinian landscape in rain and shine boosted my spirits and gave my travel wearing expectations for our South America leg a much needed shot in the arm.
Unsatisfied with an outlet on every corner, McDonalds have expanded into the city tour trade and their ancient Route Master London bus belches smoke around the popular tourist destinations in the city. As it passed we ducked into the Iglesia Catedral started in 1577 barely eighty years after the first sailings in 1492, Mass was underway in that ornate South American way that is full of brocade and velvet, gold and elaborate iconography. Spanish floated on the incense clouding from the altar and the cathedral was full to bursting.
The 200th anniversary of Cordoba’s elevation to city status is commemorated in the park by 200 olymipcesque rings that children jump through and tourists stand on for photos. At the far side of the park we wandered around the fair that had come to town and with a refreshing lack of health and safety, children screamed on rides without their parents and live electricity cables supplying the bumper cars snaked precariously close to the crowds that watched them collide.
Footsore and red from the sun, we walked the five blocks home with Bert and Vanessa, stopping for tea and cake before playing pool at the hostel before dinner. Tired of a relentless diet of red meat, we headed for El Gato, an Italian that promised simple pasta and gelato. The vegetable ravioli tasted plain but hearty and the plate was clean by a record breaking 9pm, while the others tucked into starters at 10.45pm and lay tossing in their cots fighting the meat sweats while we slept, untroubled by a phantom meat pregnancy.
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