The wines of Cafayate did not disappoint and I was sad to leave this white wine haven. After sampling the Torrontes and Malbec wine sorbets at Heladeria Miranda (yum!), we caught the bus to Tucumán. There, we had to switch buses at 12 midnight for the bus to Cordoba. It was a long night and morning, but we made it to the hostel by 8am. Thank goodness they let us check into our room right away. Siesta time was needed.
While Erik worked, I caught up on some blogging and tackled a task I’d been meaning to do for a while. I went through everything in all of my bags. Organized, cleaned and even threw out some stuff, which made Erik smile. It was interesting to see everything I have, as some stuff doesn’t really see the light of day much (you can see a list of what we carry and explore our packs on our gear page). That was a cleansing and productive day.
Our newfound love of empanadas led us to Salta La Linda located on one of the pedestrian streets near the main square. We had to try the local favorite beer as we always do, so we got a liter of Quilmes. Erik had picante (spicy) and arabe empanadas and loved them both. He said they were even better than the ones in Cafayate. I had chicken and cheese and they were both outstanding. A great lunch with beer for around $7. Not too shabby.
Fantastic empanadas al horno at Salta La Linda in Cordoba.
We also went to an organic restaurant and I got a delicious vegetarian lasagna with no noodles. They used thinly sliced zucchini as the noodles. Delicious. Erik had a steak, which was disappointingly overcooked. It also gave us a chance to try another crisp Cafayate wine that we hadn’t tried yet.
The city was nice, but a bit quiet since we were there when all of the university students are on break. Cordoba is full of gorgeous churches, of which we saw many. Our favorite was by far Iglesia de Capuchins. Exquisite. We had it all to ourselves. There was even a second story chapel behind the main altar. Unreal.
Iglesia de Capuchins, intricate both inside and out.
Since our hostel, Las Heras, had a nice rooftop kitchen with a terrace overlooking the river, we cooked quite a few meals there. Unfortunately, it was very hot at night, and since there were no fans, our nights were rather sweaty and sleepless.
The top floor kitchen and terrace at Las Heras Hostel.
Coincidentally, our time in Cordoba happened to overlap with a sweet Dutch couple we had met just a month into our journey in May of last year. Karin had recently emailed me and told me they’ve been following our trip through our blog and have sometimes even changed their itinerary based on our posts. We’d talked about meeting up should our paths cross. Thanks to Facebook, I saw they were also in Cordoba. We met for a drink and it was really nice catching up with them. It was interesting to share travel stories. It was strange, but nice in a way to meet up again with people we had met early on and realize just how much we’d all grown and changed during our time on the road.