I am sitting in a cafe/restaurant having finished lunch, using their WI-FI access to update my blog. I am also watching a local futbol match on TV with several groups of futbol fans. It is just like being in Miami during football season! Anyway, sorry for no pictures with this post. I do not have access to a power plug and my battery is low, so I want to get this post up and if you read it without pictures, check back tomorrow or later and I will add some pictures of Cordoba to this post (they have been added.) I walked around this morning getting acquainted with the town, finding out where the school was located, looking for Internet access (as I could not get on in the home I am staying). I took lots of pictures as this is a very historic town. It actually seems to have it over Buenos Aires in terms of history. Evidently Cordoba was founded and built up earlier than Buenos Aires by the Jesuits who immediately began making it an educational and cultural center. It is much smaller than Buenos Aires, only 1,300,000 people, and it has definitely preserved more of the very, very old buildings, some dating to the 1500's. Anyway, I will add pictures later. It is definitely a more laid back, calmer city and I think it will be nice, much needed break for me. (Plus it is supposed to be warmer this week. Today with the sun out it must be somewhere in the 60s pushing 70s. It is supposed to go into the 80s, maybe get close to 90 on Thursday. Checking on a map I figured out Cordoba is at a similar latitude in this hemisphere to Jacksonville, FL in the northern hemisphere. Buenos Aires is about the same latitude as Charlotte, North Carolina.)
One reason my battery is running low is I did make sure to call Dianne early this morning, sitting in an empty plaza, using my battery power and connecting to whatever unsecured system I could find. I ended up talking longer than I planned because of the news she had to share. For those who have not heard, we have a new grandchild! Kati & Ryan had their baby early Sunday morning. Reese Ella Foley arrived at 1:57 p.m. on 24 August weighing 5 pounds, 15 ounces at 19 inches long. Mother and baby are fine (I also had to call Kati and congratulate her and hear about her delivery for myself.) I do not have pictures to post, but maybe Grandma Di will send me some!
Anyway, now to the bus ride here from Buenos Aires. Quite an experience. The bus was very comfortable. They have 3 options for buses here, semi-cama, coche-cama, and luxury. The semi-cama is cheapest, but the seats only recline about like an airplane seat. The luxury seats go all the way down like a bed, but they are very expensive. The coche-cama is a very good option which a lot of people use. The seats recline about like a barca-lounger and have a pedestal for your feet that comes down from the seat in front of you. So it is just like being an a very comfortable lounge chair. Many of us in the U.S. are use to this style of sleeping (usually in front of the TV) and would find these buses very comfortable.
What was problematic about the bus first was it was about 45 minutes late in arriving. Evidently this is very unusual as all the people waiting with me were quite disturbed, as was I. But it did show, I did not miss it. Then, it made several stops on the way to Cordoba which was very disturbing to me as the stations are not well marked and you cannot tell where you are very easily. I kept asking (Esta Cordoba?). The first stop I realized was not Cordoba, but the second disturbing thing happened here. We took on quite a few passengers and several were young men, apparently drunk, and spent about an hour talking rather loudly. Now understand this is already 11 p.m. or later and most people on the bus were already trying to sleep. So, I just put on my ipod to Kenny Chesney and tried to drown them out. The final upsetting thing was that when we arrived at Cordoba I was groggy having fallen back to sleep, and I left my best travel guidebook, the most recent edition I had from Bradt, on the bus. I was slow getting off, worried about getting my luggage, had to get change to tip the young man who took my suitcase out of the luggage bay (and who was insulted with 15 centavos, even though he kept it and indicated he needed more before he would release my suitcase) and so I ended up leaving my guidebook on the bus. (At least it wasn't something more important like my passport, or wallet, or travel journal where I am recording even more thoughts and experiences than I am sharing here. Sorry, I can expose only so much of myself publicly.) Unfortunately I did not get to see much of the countryside as it was dark the entire trip, but I was awake for a while once we reached Cordoba Province and what I could see in the dark suggest that it is flat as the Texas Panhandle. There did not appear to be a mound or hill, and I could see lights way off in the distance indicating towns. I hope to take an afternoon tour outside Cordoba to an estancia and I should be able to get a look at the landscape then. This has turned into a rather long post, so I better finish for now. But, if you would like to see a few more photos of my first walk around Cordoba, follow this link to the Kodak Gallery album: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.cm4dgwu2&x=0&y=6pniec&localeid=en_US
One reason my battery is running low is I did make sure to call Dianne early this morning, sitting in an empty plaza, using my battery power and connecting to whatever unsecured system I could find. I ended up talking longer than I planned because of the news she had to share. For those who have not heard, we have a new grandchild! Kati & Ryan had their baby early Sunday morning. Reese Ella Foley arrived at 1:57 p.m. on 24 August weighing 5 pounds, 15 ounces at 19 inches long. Mother and baby are fine (I also had to call Kati and congratulate her and hear about her delivery for myself.) I do not have pictures to post, but maybe Grandma Di will send me some!
Anyway, now to the bus ride here from Buenos Aires. Quite an experience. The bus was very comfortable. They have 3 options for buses here, semi-cama, coche-cama, and luxury. The semi-cama is cheapest, but the seats only recline about like an airplane seat. The luxury seats go all the way down like a bed, but they are very expensive. The coche-cama is a very good option which a lot of people use. The seats recline about like a barca-lounger and have a pedestal for your feet that comes down from the seat in front of you. So it is just like being an a very comfortable lounge chair. Many of us in the U.S. are use to this style of sleeping (usually in front of the TV) and would find these buses very comfortable.
What was problematic about the bus first was it was about 45 minutes late in arriving. Evidently this is very unusual as all the people waiting with me were quite disturbed, as was I. But it did show, I did not miss it. Then, it made several stops on the way to Cordoba which was very disturbing to me as the stations are not well marked and you cannot tell where you are very easily. I kept asking (Esta Cordoba?). The first stop I realized was not Cordoba, but the second disturbing thing happened here. We took on quite a few passengers and several were young men, apparently drunk, and spent about an hour talking rather loudly. Now understand this is already 11 p.m. or later and most people on the bus were already trying to sleep. So, I just put on my ipod to Kenny Chesney and tried to drown them out. The final upsetting thing was that when we arrived at Cordoba I was groggy having fallen back to sleep, and I left my best travel guidebook, the most recent edition I had from Bradt, on the bus. I was slow getting off, worried about getting my luggage, had to get change to tip the young man who took my suitcase out of the luggage bay (and who was insulted with 15 centavos, even though he kept it and indicated he needed more before he would release my suitcase) and so I ended up leaving my guidebook on the bus. (At least it wasn't something more important like my passport, or wallet, or travel journal where I am recording even more thoughts and experiences than I am sharing here. Sorry, I can expose only so much of myself publicly.) Unfortunately I did not get to see much of the countryside as it was dark the entire trip, but I was awake for a while once we reached Cordoba Province and what I could see in the dark suggest that it is flat as the Texas Panhandle. There did not appear to be a mound or hill, and I could see lights way off in the distance indicating towns. I hope to take an afternoon tour outside Cordoba to an estancia and I should be able to get a look at the landscape then. This has turned into a rather long post, so I better finish for now. But, if you would like to see a few more photos of my first walk around Cordoba, follow this link to the Kodak Gallery album: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.cm4dgwu2&x=0&y=6pniec&localeid=en_US
1 comment:
Don't feel bad about leaving your book on the bus. Jon left his backpack on the bus in Madrid and it contained all our pictures of Europe. Only our of sheer fear did he figure out the bus route and run several blocks to meet its next stop to retrieve the backpack which was thankfully not stolen. The joys of foreign travel!
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