Heat in Córdoba

Friday, Jan. 28

I am sitting in a small square relaxing after a morning with lots of walking. First, I checked out of my hotel and went to the Hotel Victoria. It is an old hotel in the center of town on one of the pedestrian streets. The rooms have high ceilings, tall windows, and wooden floors. Juan, the young man from yesterday, was working again and gave me a better room than the one he had shown me then. It has a table and chairs, a TV, two beds, a nice bath, and a ceiling fan. It is comfortable with nice atmosphere and is in a good location. My guess is that the name was chosen because of the architecture which is from the turn of the last century with lots of flourishes and nice wooden shutters over the tall windows.

I finally got a haircut. Everyone at tourist offices kept directing me to unisex styling salons, and that wasn´t what I wanted. As I began my wanderings this morning, I found myself in the market area. My experience is that such areas usually have barbershops. I went up and down streets within 2-3 blocks of the market. Sure enough, I glanced inside one door and saw two barber chairs. I paused and looked, and both barbers were on the street near me. Within a few minutes I had a good haircut that cost me $1.67 U.S., probably about 33 cents more than most people pay, since in holding up fingers the barber first showed 4 and then quickly switched to 5! What´s important is how much better I feel with it; I had been unhappy with my appearance for 2-3 weeks.
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I returned to the market area for lunch. I had seen lots of places to eat in the area. Selecting one, I had the menu of the day. It was my first time to do this here. Usually, I have just ordered a main dish. I got a bowl of soup (large tubular pasta in a broth with pumpkin and tomato), bread, a boneless chicken breast (flatttened, battered, and fried), and a mixed salad (tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and other greens with oil and vinegar dressing). It was a lot of food and was delicious. The tomatoes were so ripe and tasty because it is summertime here.

I returned to the hotel for siesta. I napped 2 1/2 hours! It is so easy to do that because of the heat, a full stomach, and the fact that people drink wine or beer with their lunches here. (Wine and beer are cheaper than Coca Cola and as cheap as bottled water.)

In the evening I went to the main squarewhere a performer was singing to a rather large crowd. All the Christmas decorations on the square and the nearby shopping streets were still up and lighted (as they have been in other towns, too). I´m wondering if Christmas will ever end here. When I arrived, I figured they were still up until after Three Kings Day, but that came and went a long time ago.

I stopped at a store and bought a bottle of Valmont Chandon (mixture of cabernet sauvignon, malbec, and pinot noir) which I have been told is one of the better, more popular wines from Argentina. I meant to get a sandwich and eat it in my room, but I never found a good place to buy one that time of night. I just ate some crackers that I had in my luggage.

I found myself wishing to have a conversation with someone yesterday. It´s been two weeks since I was traveling with the Polish man. That was the last time that I have spoken more than 4-5 sentences with anyone. And it is likely to be another 10 days before I will be speaking to anyone. That´s when I expect to arrive in Buenos Aires and contact the Danish priest. It was at times like this in the past that I would write Arne an e-mail with the number for my hotel and he would call me in the evening for a brief conversation. Now I just have to manage on my own.

Saturday, Jan. 29

It´s hot, Hot, HOT today in Córdoba! I am not sure what the temperature is, but I would guess that it is around 37-38 C (upper 90s F). You can just feel the heat of the air as you walk through it. It is a dry heat, however. But I stay very thirsty by being outside. I was out walking from 10:00 until about 2:00. When I went into the restaurant, I ordered a 1.5 liter bottle of diet cola and drank half of it before the first part of my lunch even arrived.

I began the morning with a tour of the old Jesuit block in the center of town. It is the original church, theology school, and university buildings from the 1600s. The church was decorated with wooden carvings from the Missones area near Iguazu where I first arrived in Argentina over two weeks ago. The carvings were made there, shipped down the river to Santa Fe, and then hauled overland by mule carts. That´s an unbelievable trip considering it was in the 1600s. The painted ceilings in the big church and the pulpit were original. A side chapel was complete from the original period and has never been restored. It had a very ornate alter that fit perfectly in the area where it had been planned--even though the artist had made measurements and carved it far from here, shipped it in pieces, and then put it together here.

The university had a doctoral hall like the University of Coimbra had (which Arne and I toured 3-4 years ago). There, the doctoral candidates would undergo three days of oral examinations from the faculty as a priest and others observed. Actually, I think a special hall like that, dedicated exclusively for use in oral exams of doctoral candidates would be a good idea today. It would make getting a doctorate seem more special. And such a hall would probably provide a recruitment advantage for the university having it.

The university also had an exhibit hall with the constructions from the 19th Century physics lab. This was very similar to the exhibit I saw in Sao Paulo earlier this month of instruments from the University of Coimbra.

I stopped at the bus station to check schedules. Then I walked through the big park here. It is a nice one--much nicer than the one in Tucumán. It has a zoo, an amusement park, lakes, and lots of area I didn´t explore. No one was there. It was probably due to the heat. Maybe people go there in the evenings. I became somewhat disoriented in the park since the streets curved so much, and I came out further from town than I intended. Because of it, I discovered the modern, new campus of the University of Córdoba. The buildings are very contemporary in design using poured concrete and glass. They are interesting, but their appearance has been spoiled by the lack of landscaping, by haphazzard trails running everywhere on campus, and by the posting of notices and advertisements on the lower surfaces of the buildings.

As I came out of the campus into a neighborhood, it took me only 3 blocks to get to a street with a name I recognized. I walked back into town and returned to the restaurant where I ate two days ago. That´s where I drank so much Coca Cola while waiting for my food!

I ordered a mixed salad again. it tasted so good. Then I ordered lasagna which the menu indicated had ham in it. It also was stuffed with spinach and ground meat. And on top was a big slice of roast beef, too! I moved the beef to the side and ate it first with its melted cheese and tomato sauce. Then I ate the huge portion of lasagna. When I finished, I was more stuffed than I have been in ages. It was all good, however.

I think I am leaving here tomorrow. I will alter my initial plan and skip going to Mina Clavera. I will go to Alta Gracia and then continue onward from there to General Belgrano. I hope I can get a hotel in each town. These are towns up in the hills and are popular vacation spots. My guidebook only lists one place for Alta Gracia. The tourist offices have been helpful, however, so I am hoping they will help again if I have a problem.

I have started reading a new book, one that I have wanted to read since the first reviews of it came out about 4 years ago. It´s Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It´s one of those books that everyone raves about, so I hope I will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed anticipating reading it.
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I left the hotel around 6:30 and it was still HOT outside. I went to a nearby supermarket and bought some cheese and cookies. I will eat in my room tonight and finish the bottle of wine I started last night. I also bought some peanuts to have as snacks when traveling.

When I came out of the supermarket, it started to sprinkle. It felt so good to have those drops of water hitting me. I walked until I found this cyber cafe. The town is quiet. Stores don´t open again after siesta on Saturdays here. I don´t guess anything will be happening until 10:00 p.m. or later, so I won´t be out to enjoy it. I will go back to the room to eat my cheese. I may watch a film. Then I will go to bed about the time that the town is coming to life. I want to be up and at the bus station rying to catch a bus by the middle of the morning tomorrow.