Cordoba: the city of students, mate and fernet

(Yes, we have left already South America, but the blog is lagging behind, so we try to catch up:)

Cordoba, the second largest city in Argentina looks humble, compared to Buenos Aires. The city has the oldest and most popular universities thus it is packed with students all year long except on school breaks.

We were couchsurfing for a week at Belen’s place and she turned out to be an excellent host. She took us to Cabalango, we shared music and popular sayings of Hungary and Argentina, and she tried to poison our pure Castilian Spanish with all the Cordoban slang she could coin out:) Argentine Spanish is already the weirdest in South America and in Cordoba it is not any better:) We also got introduced to fernet: it’s a drink like the Hungarian Unicum, bitter when drank pure, not so much better when drank with Coke. They say you have to drink three before you start to enjoy it. I stopped at two:) Apart from fernet, yerba mate is the local preferred drink. It is a kind of tea served in a little pot with a silver strew, and after each refill, someone else is sipping out the infusionated hot mate. Sharing mate is one of the most common way of socializing in many parts of Argentina, hot-water thermos sales are skyrocketing here, and it is even accepted to ask random people to share their mate with you.

Cabalango is a place with a river near Cordoba. As the river flows through megalithic rocks, it forms natural pools and sinkholes. A great place to take a dip during hot summer days.

We also had a good asado one night, with other couchsurfers, while on another night we were preparing French crepe and Hungarian goulash. The local couchsurfing people are really great and we had also met some legendary fellow travellers:

Alex “El pirata” from Barcelona. He navigated his pirate ship successfully all across South America. During 10 months of travelling he lost 15 kilos, but gained a lot of friendships and a unique tattoo:) Even though he talks a lot of crap and he calls us Champaign backpackers, we still like him:)

Eunjung “La Koreana” from Seoul. She travelled extensively in South America and Europe. She is a master of tango, dances better than many Argentine do:) She is loved and appreciated by all the bedbugs and insects of South America. We didn’t try her pancakes but the instant Korean noodles were great:)

“El chico perdido” from Australia. He has the amazing capability of getting massively drunken every night without speaking an inch of Spanish:) And he is doing it for 10 months already travelling in South America. Last time I saw him he was swearing he could find his way home alone … then no one heard about him for 2 days:)