Almost on the road

I should´ve started somewhere else, somewhere busy and miserable like Buenos Aires or Mexico City, because Cordoba is just one of those cities you can´t leave behind, the kind of place where you´ll think of all kinds of crazy excuses just to stay an extra day or so, which is kind of what I´m doing right now. Despite the language barrier, I´ve made friends here (locals and extranjero), dated wonderful ladies, and formed an intimate bond with the city streets via bicycle. This place has it all.

My daily routine consisted of going to language school from 8:30-12:30, during which time I pretty much spaced out and thought about cooking a bigger steak than the day before. Five pounds of cow for lunch was all I needed for a twenty mile sprint into the sierras. The mountains offer an entirely different landscape than the city. As soon as you get past the first toll on Ruta 55, you find yourself surrounded by steep peaks coated in all kinds of green craziness. The growth on the mountains seems young; the trees are small and spaced far apart from each other, yet the countryside has the look of unfettered wilderness, a land only occasionally bisected by a small dirt road or remote house.

It´s what I love most about this place. The city is around 3 million strong, yet all one needs to do is bike west for thirty minutes and you wouldn´t have a clue. No sprawling suburbs or vast fields of who knows what. Just untouched green hills and wide flowing rivers, the perfect temperature for a post-bike swim. The countless stray dogs are kind of a bummer, especially the few that charge after me and nip at the heels. When you´re not on two wheels however, they´re all really sweet.

But that´s enough about trees and animals and all that hippity dippity BS, because the key characteristic that makes this place unique is the people. I´ve had the pleasure of knowing and hanging out with some of the most amiable folks I´ve ever encountered in my travels, and I hate to say this so early in my journey, but it´s going to be hard to top the level of humanity and hospitality that Cordobans seem to personify. My friends here have been patient with my very slow progress in their mother tongue and are always quick to correct me after having a good laugh at my awful pronunciation. To spite them, I´ve taken to speaking Spanish with a thick southwestern accent. However, everyone seems to understand me a lot easier when I do this, which means my plans have back-fired once again. To top it off, I spent my last two weeks hanging out with the coolest lady in the city, but that story´s just between us.


Anywho, tomorrow the real journey begins. I´ll be heading for La Falda and then who knows. Carlos tells me to head northwest towards the national parks, which sounds like a plan. My blog updates will be more frequent once I´m on the road. I swear!