Cordoba, Argentina

After a 24-hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu we arrived somehow sea-sick in the central Argentinian city of Cordoba.

Cordoba we found out is actually a pretty cool city. It has over a million people, which was significant change for us compared to the lazy, small-town feel of Puerto Iguazu. It has old-school Spanish colonial architecture, skinny cobble-stone streets, and a ton of churches and universities (seven to be exact). It was originally built in the 1500s as a Jesuit settlment but thanks to the universities, theatres and art galleries, it's now considered the cultural capital of Argentina.

We spent most of the first day relaxing at the hostel (Baluch Backpackers, $150 ARP/n - dbl) where we'd been upgraded from a basic double room to a luxurious apartment all because reception couldn't find the key to our booked room. The only drawback was that directly outside the apartment a street vendor was shouting out his bargains on sunglasses and DVDs until about 11pm each night. We had a few beers on the hostel rooftop, befriended some Scottish travelers whom we had dinner with that evening, and crashed out.

The next day we took a 2-hour public bus ride to the town of Alta Gracia which, like Cordoba, was originally built as a Jesuit settlement. It's now a popular tourist destination because it's where Che Guavera grew up. There's a museum we visited in his former childhood home which chronicles his life through photographs, original letters and other cool stuff like his motorcycle he used to tour through South America. They even preserved the bathroom in the Guevara house which I was about to use myself when Charlotte pointed out that it was actually part of the display.

Our third and final day in Cordoba we went to the Cordoba Zoo. The zoo itself was a little depressing as most of the animals looked pretty miserable in their enclosures, however, a chimpanzee brightened our day when he started throwing fruit at spectators. Charlotte took shelter behind a small child and I was almost pelted in the head with an apple, though we managed to survive the attack.

We ate a quick and guilty meal at the Cordoba McDonalds -Charlotte a (minimum size) 10-piece nugget and I a two-patty quarter pounder with cheese (shouldn't it be half pounder?) - and boarded our 10-hour overnight bus to Mendoza with a dirty McDonalds guilt brooding over us.