Day whatever-this-is-now saw me cruising around parts of Cordoba that I missed out on the day before. Ferdinando said that most of the museums were free on Wednesdays, so I headed up to a couple of them to see if any looked good. After weaving through hundreds of 8 year old kids I decided it was time for something else. I wound up in the Jesuit square, which is where the old Jesuit cathedral is as well as the University of Cordoba. The cathedral was probably one of the most amazing that I have ever seen. The outside wall was an old stone wall, kind of what you would imagine dividing fields in rural Europe. The inside was dominated by an architectural masterpiece of a ceiling. It looks like the inside of a cylinder, covered in gold. It probably only took them a couple hundred years to build, but hey, it was amazing. I've started to realize that nothing in Argentina is open very late- a couple of the places I wanted to go were already closed by the time I came knocking around 4:30. But I did manage to get into one of the University of Cordoba buildings. It's been around since the late 16th century, which, oh, is only about 200 years older than the good ol' US of A. It was pretty neat to think about how many people had sat where I saw students sitting with textbooks out. Their library, albeit small, was what I would think of at a university like this; floor to ceiling shelves with a sliding ladder.
For dinner I tried the local favorite called locro which is a stew mixed with just about everything, from maize to potato to pumpkin to beef (of course) to chorizo (sausage). It was really tasty, except for the part that the meat was still rock-solid frozen. I'm guessing that's not part of the job description. I don't seem to be doing all that well on first-rounders with the local cuisine. I'm sure my next bowl of locro will be better; when I told some people about my frozen meat edition they just gaped at me. Note to self: frozen meat in soup not normal.
My day ended with another bus ride, this time to Salta. The first time around, when I handed my bag to the luggage guy at the rear he put it in and off I went. This time, it was as if I said I'd never heard of Maradona when I started to walk away. I got the dirtiest look, a couple fingers shaped into a circle and some sort of indescribable noise. I held back from saying Pele was the most talented guy to walk this earth as I threw him a coin. I got on thinking that I would have a bit of a better seat, but no it was exactly the same. Although THIS time we did get the dinner and drink on board, which was pretty cool. They also played 'Bounty Hunter,' which was impressive because it's a movie that has just come out pretty recently in the US. They brought their 'A' game on this bus ride.
I got into Salta at the more reasonable hour of 7:30, and looked at my instructions on how to get to the hostel. INSTRUCTIONS: take a taxi and we'll pay you back. OK, great. The only thing is that everyone I have talked to about taxis tell me not to flag one down off the street. So, either I walk, hoping the sign 'Al Centro' means to the Plaza and follow a different set of directions from there, or throw caution to the wind and get into one of these cabs and hope that I don't go to Bolivia and back before getting to the hostel. These taxis don't have meters, which doesn't help. Watching them push their cars up the line didn't add to my confidence level. What I wound up doing was telling one of the cabbies that I had 15 pesos (about $3.50) and asked if that would get me to where I wanted to go. They said sure, no problem.
This is the part where I say that I wound up in some deserted estancia with nothing but my backpack and a mouthful of exhaust. But no, the taxi turned out to be just fine. Salta itself is a great little town nestled up in the northwest part of the country near the border with Chile. It's known for its more cultural image, with a more indigenous influence. So far it's lived up to its name- the architecture is clearly different, as well as the people. My afternoon was marked by climbing one of the mountains bordering the town to reach a viewpoint of the valley. I could either take a gondola up (that's for sissies) or take the stairs. All 1,070 of them. After climbing the 1070th stair (the sign lied. I counted 10,000), I was met with a pretty astounding view of the valley, with the beginnings of the Andes on the other side.
All in all, Salta has been pretty impressive so far. I haven't figured out what I'm doing for dinner tonight, but I think I'll be having beef. Just a guess.
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