If Salta is compared to a beautiful woman, then Cordoba should be her sophisticated older cousin.
How happy am I that we decided to break up the 24 hour bus trip to Patagonia with a day or two stop in this beautiful city. Cordoba offers a comfortable mix of modern and old. Where else can you walk into a Belle Epoque building to enjoy Saturday night bowling under black lighting. We arrived July 9th, Argentina's Independence Day, so almost everything was closed, but this didn't stop us from wandering the cobblestone streets and peatonales -- pedestrian walkways -- in the warm winter sunshine.
As our bus pulled out of Salta, I twittered a quick message to say I was on my way to Cordoba. Soon after, I received tweets from two different Twitter friends.
The first, Angela, also know as @santelmoloft on Twitter, originally from LA who is now living in Buenos Aires and has a lovely blog on the city. Her response to my Tweet?
"I love Cordoba," she told me. "There's a little known treasure for people who like folklore music... the house of the great Atahualpa Yupanqui."
Turns out, his house is approximately 150 kilometers outside Cordoba city in Cerro Colorado, He alternated between living here and his place in Buenos Aires. Perfect for a jaunt into Cordoba province if you have more than a day to spend in Cordoba.
The second, Adrian Bertolini, a.k.a @adbert, Shorty Awards finalist, Posterous blogger, top Twitterer in Argentina and, what strikes me most, an unbelievably warm person. He suggested I check out the churches. We checked out Manzana Jesuitica and the Cordoba Cathedral right off the main Plaza San Martin.
He also suggested Paseo Buen Pastor, an area for drinking, going out, museums, art and more, and the Cordoba flea market or "mercardo de pulgares."
We made tentative plans to meet for happy hour in Buen Pastor, but we unfortunately ran out of time before rushing for our overnight bus to Nuequen. But now I have far more than one reason to return to Cordoba.
