Cordoba (where Robbie Williams is alive and well)

We arrived after an 18 hour journey (!) in Cordoba, Argentina's 2nd largest city, about 500miles inland from Buenos Aires. It has 1.2m inhabitants - 10% of which are students (Cordoba hosts Argentina's oldest University, dating from 1613), and it attracts students from all over the world (it's much cheaper than Buenos Aires) so it's a buzzy and vibrant place - quite unlike sleepy Posadas!

We decided to rough it again, (to save money for Buenos Aires - where we are going to live it up a little), but we did choose the nicest hostel.

The Palenque is a gorgeous early 20th century building, lovingly restored, with stripped wooden floorboards, high ceilings, iron candelabra fittings and stained glass windows. Friendly and homely, they even have a big old golden labrador (C´s fave dogs) called Jujuy, who unfortunately was a bit nervus as there's been bombs going off all over town (protests across Argentina whilst we've been here, re rising fuel costs, 35% inflation, rising food costs etc - guess what, nothing on the BBC worldwide website, as we don't really report on South America, only North).



From its grand beginnings (one of Cordoba's richest families lived there), it now houses an array of backpackers looking for somewhere with a bit of character and somewhere cheap to stay. Our private double was only 13 quid between us per night!

For that saving, we thought, "Sod it, well do the shared bathroom thing". Which was actually remarkably OK, my big fear was having to pick other people's hair out of plugs (*gag* I know), but the Palenque seemed to be cleaned on a 5-minute basis, so everything was immaculate. It just reminded me of being a student though, having to listen out and wait until the bathroom becomes free before bagging it!

Our first day there, we dumped our stuff and head out for the afternoon. The lovely staff recommended a City Tour to get a feel for the town. C baulked when he saw the bus was sponsored by McDonald's but I assured him they wouldn't be making money out of us going on it and we didn't need to buy their fries. Instead we chanced upon a city food fair where lunched on delicious freshly-made empanadas (they did veggie ones, yay! You can tell we're out of Posadas).

Our tour took us from the Catedral de Cordoba in the centre of town, with it's "trompe l'oeil' shadows paved into the brickwork...





...past the convent where the nuns still live as they did 400 years ago, the brightly-painted art college buildings, a house built to rotate through the day to face the sun, some galleries I earmarked for further exploration, a beautiful old church with a missing a spire (built that way to represent man's imperfection)...



...and a "dancing water" display, where jets shoot up to classical music...it happens every hour, and it's all lit up at night, so we thought we'd take a wander down there later...

We found one swanky-looking restaurant in that vicinity that evening, but its windows were facing the other way so we couldn't see jack.

It was about to get more rubbish - turns out they only did bar snacks. I was STARVING so I ordered the most foody looking thing on the menu, mushroom pizza, sighing inwardly as I did so. My belly is like pizza dough!

Then it arrived and there was no tomato sauce. I pointed out this major ommision to the concept of pizza-ness to the waiter. He shrugged, pointed out that it did just say "cheese and mushroom pizza", so what was I to expect?!

Menus in Argentina are very very literal. If you order steak, that is exactly what you will get. No veg. No garnish. No chips. Just steak. Evidently ditto the pizza menu.

We by now had also missed the last showing of the dancing water, but consoled ourselves that it's on every day...so we just drank more wine.

Next day, Saturday 19th July was my dad's birthday. I sent him a text from C's phone as my Argie SIM was out of credit. Feel like *such* a student! It was raining so we visited an internet café and caught up on blogs a bit - I'm so behind now that we don't have our little routine any more.

Sent more emails to recruitment consultants. It looks bleak back home, loads of people are being axed from the Telegraph, News International, etc I've had the fear of God put into me by my mate Michelle who works in recruitment, and she said I really have to be realistic about my salary expectations when I get back in this current market. It's all doom and gloom. If I had known, I would have rented my house out properly and stayed out for a year. Seriously.

Also got an email off Tim, my oldest mate Lizzy's husband. She's now too ill with her cancer to respond to her own emails, so he was giving me an update. It's not good news. I decided there and then, as I hadn't smoked at all for the last few days of having a sore throat, (which I'd convinced myself was throat cancer) that I was simply not going to touch a fag ever again. I'm writing this over a month later, and weirdly because of Lizzy, it has been easy (not that I smoked loads, but it was a habit, a "with a drink" thing). I don't know if people are still reading, as I stopped writing for ages, but this is here as a pledge to you all.

C & I then decided to go check out a veggie buffet restaurant "Verde Siempre Verde" we'd read about. I had an unassuming doorway, tucked away on a busy high street. Most people rushed past it without even noticing it.



Inside seemed like a secret society, where closet non-meat-eating Argies could be safe, finally able to indulge their veggie/vegan desires. We looked around us at the clientele - they *looked* pretty normal. Heck! There were even men in business suits in there! But did their friends know? Their wives? Families? Colleagues?

I piled my plate high with anything and everything, thankful, for once, to not be limited to doughy thick pizza-base drowning in tasteless rubbery melted cheese. "Look at you! You're in Hog Heaven!" C laughed as I tucked in. 10 mins later I was full. I think having a buffet as the first meal of the day (we'd missed breakfast) doesn't work - my tummy couldn't cope with the sudden onslaught. So the one time I could eat everything in the room, I actually couldn't. Great!

We wandered round town, checked out a little art gallery close to our hostel, then scooted over to a rather splendid Art Deco arthouse cinema, but unfortunately there was nothing on we wanted to see (or could understand, if I'm going to be honest!).

Headed into a music store. C bought the new Coldplay album (every time he switched over to a music channel throughout our trip, it was driving him insane that he was only ever catching the last minute of "Violet Hill"!!!) - plus it was only £5 out here - and I snapped up a Bjork Live DVD that's not available in the UK, N.America or Europe. Cool!

An Argentinian girl saw me buying it and started chatting to me about how she'd love to see her, but all the stars only visit Buenos Aires when the come to Argentina. She was awed that I'd seen her in London before I came out. We take that stuff for granted over in London, don't we, centre of the universe and all that?!

As the afternoon melded into the evening we found the "UV Pop Bar" I'd read about earlier that day. It was funky but empty, and run by two guys. Was this our new Sampaka?!

We took up residence on a squishy sofa and proceeded to drink our way through the cocktail menu, whilst, bizarrely, watching Police videos (the band, not a crime thing), and then The Best of Later with Jools Holland.

The guys told me they downloaded it all from the internet (illegally) and pieced together their own video collections. They also said they couldn't find anywhere that played decent music in town, they loved English stuff and hated Cumbia (it *was* our new Sampaka! But with an indie vibe). Although I was a bit taken aback when on finding out we were from England, Juan shouted (only half-jokingly), "The Malvinas are OURS!". Er, quite.

C had met 3 other guys outside whilst having a fag and came and grabbed me to meet them. Hugo and his two pals were funny, spoke really good English and we passed a pleasant rest-of-evening with them sharing beers and (more) pizza. In the end, they gave us their numbers, said that they couldn't see us the next day as that was "Dia del Amigos" (Sunday July 20th, Friends' Day, why don't we start that in England?!) and they had dinner booked with their best friends, but that we could perhaps join them after. They also told us we should move to Cordoba as it was so cheap to live there. I could sell up my London house, buy 4-6 huge properties, live in one, rent the rest out and have no need to work. Food for thought, huh?

Can't remember what we did on our last full day in Cordoba, took a wander round, tried to find the thinnest building in the world, which our city tour had told us about (failed, I think she lied, cos Google says it's in Vancouver or something).

On our last night, we finally got to see the dancing water... then pottered onto a craft market, where I bought the last of my presents, and onto a proper milonga (Tango show) with dinner. When we got there, we were the youngest there by decades - although it was quite a fab show, and C noticed that Robbie Williams is alive and well and working, at least...which is nice.



Next day, before we set off for Rosario, we went to a fantastic gallery, the Palacio des Belles Artes, where C said he saw the best painting he'd ever seen...



...and I got arty with the architecture, which beautifully blended modern elements with the original building...



Next stop, Rosario...

The prodigal son and daughter return to Posadas...for one night only!

We got the coach from Sao Paulo and travelled for 19 hours - yes - through to Posadas, a necessary stop off before we headed onto Cordoba, Argentina´s second biggest city.

Well, we said we´d be back, but didn´t think it would be so soon!

It was really lovely pulling into Posadas bus station (even though they have the WORST toilets in the world), it felt like coming home.

In fact, I´d messaged Aida and our other Posadas contacts already and they had the proverbial welcome mat out. Well, towels anyway, I´d asked if we could have showers there when we arrived, and in exchange, I´d buy pastries for breakfast. The deal was done, and freshly-showered after our marathon slog, we sat and chatted with Aida and Flor (and new voluntario Emily, who showed us new photos of Augustin & co at the refugio - it was really weird seeing her stuff in "our" room...) like we´d never been away. Camila, who´d obviously not read our email, went absolutely *mental* at our return, really beside herself, neither of us had ever seen a dog so excited!

We left our bags there, took a house-key again (just for the day) and went off to find a hotel for the night. Turns out (Aida called ahead to find this out), we couldn´t leave Posadas that night as planned, so we´d have to stay a night.

We tried the Posadas Hotel, the town´s only boutique joint, but it´s actually Winter holiday fornight (hence the paucity of available buses too) and they were fully booked - damn, I´d fancied a bit of luxury!

Then I remembered this incredibly ancient-looking hotel, which just looked really sweet and charming and quaint, with a crumbly old dear in reception, which we´d walked by weeks previously. Miracle upon miracles, they had one room left. I think C thought it was run-down rather than cute, but it was clean, dry, the old lady was friendly and welcoming - and the room was so *incredibly* cheap (50 pesos, um...60 pesos is 10 quid!) and only for one night, so he couldn´t turn it down either. Although we were slightly amused and not a little worried by the electric shower.

This "electric" shower had a plug. I mean a real, "electric" plug. With pins. And a socket. About a foot from the water flow.

The handwritten instructions instucted us to
1) fill up the tank.
2) Plug it in and leave it for 10 minutes to heat up.
3) Unplug and shower. It also recommends
4) you don´t plug the shower in without any water in the tank.


shower

I would add to that 5) make sure you have dry hands when attempting to do anything with the plug - it sparked brightly when I plugged it in.

I actually kissed C goodbye before I got under it the following morning...but it´s OK people, we´ve both lived to tell the tale.


I noted it was a bit different to the swanky hotel we had in Sao Paulo (above)

Checked in, bags dumped, we spent a lovely weekday in Posadas, doing what we´d never got round to doing all the time we were there...being tourists!

Wandered through town, had breakfast at the Posadas Hotel, took a stroll through a craft market, bought a few more pressies, was mildly embarrassed whe one of my former students, Florencia, came over and kissed me "hi"...she´d been in the 5B class I´d walked out of - her mum was setting up a stall, and F was helping her in her holdays, then we met Dani and Fernando for lunch at Alex´s (he wasn´t there though), wandered up to their swanky apartment for a bit (bumped into rather-dull-Gen again...how does she do that!? Just appear from nowhere?! So we had to tell her we´d arranged to meet the guys later at Vitrage), wandered up to Aida´s so Dani could meet the famous Cami, then we said hi again to Norma and Fernando, Dani and her Fernando demonstrated some great new salsda moves they´d learnt (very Dirty Dancing with the lifts!), then having said bye to all, we went for a little siesta.

Later that evening we two went to dinner at Cavas where C had his fave steak dish so far in Argentina again, and we were met a little later by Mariana and Cesar. In the end, Dani & Fernando called off, so Cesar took us to his fave little restaurant again, where we spent the rest of a lovely night in the company of our new old friends.

Next day, we finally managed to visit an art gallery I´d been wanting to visit for weeks, when Oz K had discovered it. Got chatting to the curator, Alejandro, who took it upon himself to be our personal (Spanish language) guide and narrator (we were the only ones there). He was especially thrilled when I showed him the picture of Oz K and told him we were friends and that we were meeting her in Buenos Aires. We had our pic taken together and he has already sent me an email, saying (amongst other things), how lovely it was to meet us, especially as he´s never met anyone of Indian origin before(!) and to keep in touch.

On our way out of town, and before we popped back to say bye to our Posadas family for real, I took photos of all the things I´d meant to in the past - the pastry shop across the road that has "HELADOS! HELADOS! HELOADOS!" in huge foot high letters about 6 times all over it...but never has any ice-cream in cos the freezer has long broken. Our old road. The very smiley man in the ice-cream shop (we bought a final cornet each, for old times sake). Bought a book I´d been meaning to buy from the bookstore. Went and said a final goodbye to Silvina and Aida (she asked "Are you really going this time!?"), although Camila, I think was now too confused and would barely look at us. I think we were messing with her little doggy head too much. Florencia, unfortunately was asleep having finished her final exam that day, so we blew a kiss at the door.

That is, by the way why we decided NOT to go to the orphanage (my school was on holiday, so decisoon was easy). C had already said bye to the kids twice, and we decided a third goodbye would be just too confusing for the little ones, and difficult for all parties, especially where Augustin was concerned.

Went back, picked up our bags and took a cab to Posadas terminal.

A funny aside, I got chatted up by our rather cute cab driver, Richard, when C dashed into he hotel to get our bags (fast worker, eh!?), and then as we paid him and waved him goodbye, he stopped the car, waved me back and handed me his phone number...right in front of C!!! So I could call him next time we come to Posadas, he said. I´m not sure if he meant just so he could take the cab fare...but it made me smile...which was a lovely way to end our visit as I´d been feeling a bit melancholy at leaving again.

Next stop, Cordoba.

3 nights in Sao Paulo, Brasil

We´d found an extra friend on the bus, a girl called Katya from Mexico, who had overheard us talking English and approached us. She kind of latched onto us, but her being a single young girl, C & I felt a little responsible for her in the big bad dangerous Sao Paulo (well, Lonely Planet said it was), so we took her under our wing and told her to stick with us.

Sao Paulo is the 3rd biggest city in the world. And with over 20 million inhabitants, twice the size of London. All the books warned caution.

By sheer amazing miracle upon miracle, despite us not giving him an exact ETA and our bus turning up an hour later than expected, Stéphane (my old teaching colleague Ali´s friend), had turned up to meet us and found me about to log onto my internet account to get his number.

He informed us he´d also booked us into a hotel for the night, near where he lived in the area of Paulista (quite a bohemian and arty area)...Katya looked a little worried we´d abandon her, but in the end, we managed to get a room with an extra bed in it and let her share with us, bless her.

It was a SWANKY hotel, all marble and chrome reception, with glossy designer internet terminals and big screen music tv above minimalist leather and chrome sofas. Stéph´d got us a really cheap rate, but I think it´s because it´s not quite finished yet - they were still laying carpet on the stairs up from our floor, I noticed.

Still, what an angel - we´d never even asked him to do this for us! We extended our booking for the next night too, dumped our bags and all headed out for what turned out to be a fantastic meal; meat or fish of choice with more colourful and tasty vegetables than I´d eaten in two months in Posadas (I gorged a little), and headed on for a few drinks.

Whilst looking for some bars closer to our hotel to end the evening, we noticed a lot of pretty boys in twos and a few butch lady-pairs too. Ah! We were staying in the gay part of town! I felt instantly safer, and smiled to myself as I watched C & Stéphane walking ahead of Katya and me, C oblivious to the fact that he was being checked out by quite a lot of the local talent.

We eventually stumbled across some gorgeous little bars in the arty area of town, Paulista (having nearly been guided into a titty bar the other side of town when we were looking for a club called Vegas...I think we got taken to the wrong Vegas...!), so we found one and sat in it talking away for the rest of the evening..

Not an awful lot more to say about the first night, except C & I were glad we´d got two people who had a rudimentary grasp of Portuguese. Katya in fact put us all to shame - early 20s and she speaks fluent Spanish, English, French (she lived there for a while) and gets by in Portuguese. She took the opportunity to speak to Stéphane in his native French (he´s out here for 6 months, just bumming and learning Portuguese, living with two Brazilian brothers), which I did too for a bit, but realised it was making C feel left out, so we mainly stuck to English.

A little embarassing, isn´t it, that everyone defaults to English so us Brits can keep up?!
____

Next day we all met up, Katya wanted, for some reason to buy a hooky footy shirt for a mate so there ensued a wild-goose chase which took us all over the city (it was a nice day, so we were walking), but this did mean time was ticking on and C & I were getting bored with not getting anything we´d planned to do, done.

Still, added to the C outside footy stadium collection (2 of a series of 2 now), Estadium Municipal, and failing to find the deep fried cheese-filled pastry pockets an appetising lunch choice at the nearby market, I picked some nectarines, strawberries and cherries out instead. I was so shocked when the man said it was 25 Real (about 6-7 quid, that´s fancy Borough-bleedin´-market prices!!!) that I simply handed the money over. Of course I should have bargained, walked away, whatever, but I was in shock. Plus, it being Portuguese I wasn´t exactly sure he´d said what he did. I consoled myself that they were, at least, tasty as hell and I´d bought enough for a yummy breakfast for C & I the next day.

Wandered round another craft market more centrally in town, bought a few presents for back home, then parted company with Katya and Stéphane as they were still on the hooky top trail.

We opted for a bit of culture, but not before I stopped to eat a very weird street snack, I will call Hot Cheese on a Stick!

We headed to the Oriental quarter and spent a few hours there watching the celebrations; 100 years of the Oriental community settling in Sao Paulo.

I did think it quite funny we´d come to South America to watch a load of Chinese/Japanese celebrations, but there you go, aint the world just a big old meltin´ pot...

Later that night (much later, annoyingly, they were like 1.5 hours late...and I was starving), Katya, Stéph and his flatmate Gabriel, a lawyer, came to pick us up and go to Gabriel´s favourite restaurant which served food typical of the only part of Brazil that doesn´t have a river or sea. Something started to niggle me about that.

I was right; they did no fish dishes! Or any vegetarian ones. So now I was hungry, we were really late (it was nearly 11), I´d not eaten all the yummy food at the Chinese fest as we were going to this great restaurant, and I was stuck with...soup and salad. Whilst the rest of them tucked into a huge fat meat feast. I felt like I was coming down with something too, so I was feeling a bit emotional already and hunger just makes it worse. I tried hard not to cry. My last night in Sao Paulo and this?!?! I glugged at my Capirinha, sipped at my soup and nibbled on a salad, that I then couldn´t finish, when C sneezed on it by mistake. Great.

We wandered round for a bit trying to find a promised Samba club, but in the end, I was feeling a bit ropey, so C & I headed back - we had to be on a bus back to Posadas the next day anyway to get the next bus out of Cordoba and we had not been able to get the swanky hotel to help with bookings (they were a bit rubbish on reception), so we´d have to go early.
___

Next day, we found out we couldn´t actually leave Sao Paulo that day, so we´d have to get an 11am the next day. We´d just checked out and paid the hotel 15 Real to look after our luggage! And we couldn´t book a ticket till 2.30 as they were on siesta or something, so we had to hang around the bus station. Tried to go online to blog, but the "24 hour" internet café was inexplicably shut, so took a pic of C next to an amusing chemist´s sign instead (Farto) and had a tiny hot chocolate as I tried to drown out the tuneless tinkly-plonk of a drunken tramp on a piano in the café´s courtyard.

Eventually we managed to purchase our tickets out of town and headed off to find a bit of culture...found a samba band playing tunes on recycled drums, pots and pans...think it was a "Green Week" or something...ended up finding a fascinating Antiques market on the way to the Art gallery, so much so, we didn´t get round to doing the gallery either as we were then too hungry so went for something to eat. We really are crap at being tourists!

That evening, we kept it low key, checked back into the hotel, had a nap, and went out about 11pm to get something for C to eat. I just had a hot chocolate. I really wasn´t feeling great...eventually I think, hanging out with "Sicknote" has finally got to my immune system...oh oh...