Córdoba

Two weeks ago, after taking my week 3 parciel (which the quarter system has well prepared me for) I went with my group to Córdoba in central Argentina. We stayed an hour or so outside of the city in the Sierras chicas at Estancia Ongamira built in 1592 and now owned by the nicest Australian family with a very cute little girl who is already bilingual.

We hit a lot of traffic getting there so the bus ride took about 13 hours but I somehow managed to sleep solidly for 10 of those hours after watching all of "Hachi: A Dog's Story" with Richard Gere. Don't really know how I managed to sleep through all of the stops and people getting on and off, etc. but glad I did!

Friday:

    

    

When we arrived at the estancia we had breakfast then hit the trails, trotting. Literally.

Cute little puppies followed us for the ENTIRE day. I am still shocked at how many times they didn't get trampled by our horses.

 

Juan giving us a quick horse riding cram session. Apparently all you need to know is "kisses and kicks"

Yes, we climbed to the very top of Mt. Colchiqui on our horses.

My horsey

Just bein' gauchos

Scaling the mountain- luckily Juan reassured me that the horses had "something special" beforehand so that they weren't scared.

Our guides

Andean Cóndor

group shot

I spy with my little eye our horses!

back to the estancia that night.. give us fooood

That night we had an asado while Juan played us any english song we could think of that he knew on his guitar, so mostly Beatles.

Saturday:

Mt. Colchiqui from the estancia's road. It's told that the natives of the valley, the Comechingones, all committed suicide off of this mountain when the Spanish conquistadors invaded.

Probably where we got our dinner last night

"cave" hiking nearby

Pero no hablo español

Lasagna never tasted so good

A cactus farm at the firewood store?

That was a fun 4 hour van ride on extremely smooth, paved roads.

That night we drove to the salt flats, Las Salinas Grandes, and camped out, cooked, and saw starts for the first time since I've been here! Somehow I also managed to fall asleep while Juan serenaded us again by the fire..

Sorry, we had to.

road to nowhere

Chef Juan

Sunday:

Went hiking with the cows

Over the river,

and past the massive waterfalls,

to the cow paddies we go!

The original wall kinda looks like a map of the world, no?

Four different types of pizza for lunch?

Okayyy

Then it was a 10 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires to make it home justt in time for school in the morning. Per-fecto.

Tomorrow I'm off to Rosario for the weekend, will update when I return!

Besos