Cordoba

Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014—Puebla to Cordoba

Neither Wes nor I slept well last night.  He had drainage which resulted in coughing.  I had a stuffy nose.  I’m wondering if both problems are related to allergies.  I have been sneezing a lot.  I have not been taking my allergy medicine that I normally take at home.  I took a pill this morning and will take another this evening.  I hope that’s all it is.  I don’t want to get sick.

We got up earlier than expected because of our problems sleeping, so we walked to the bus station getting there about 1 hr. 15 min. before our bus was scheduled to depart.  I tried to change our tickets to the bus at 8:30 (rather than the scheduled one at 9:30), but they refused;

We arrived in Cordoba at 12:15 and walked the 16 blocks or so to Hotel Palacio to check in.  Soon, we went out to eat.  We found a wonderful restaurant operated by a man and his mother.  We got the multi-course lunch—cream of black bean soup, spinach crepe topped with cream sauce, chicken adobo (for me; Wes had chicken milanesa), refried black beans, small serving of sliced bananas, and a pitcher of lemonade.

From there, we walked to an ecological park recommended by the guidebook and looked at it.  Then we headed downstown where we saw the Palacio Municipal which has a nice mural within its stairwell, the outside of the Cathedral which was not open at the time, the people sitting in the zocalo, and the shops and buildings surrounding the zocalo.

We were exhausted by then and returned to the room to rest until evening.  When we did return, it was exciting.  There was a full band (30-35 members) playing Danzon music, and couples were dancing.  We watched for a while.  Then we headed to the cathedral and saw the inside of it.  After watching a little more dancing, we wandered through the shopping area hearing street musicians.  Wes bought some potato chips.  Combing back through the zocalo, the band had quit playing, and there was a rock band and a pair of jugglers performing.