So the trip to Cordoba didnt start particurlaly well. The bus was due to leave at 11pm and 10.56pm there was still no sign of the bus on any of the 15 platforms we were told it could be on and there was no information on the screens either. Just as the nerves were starting to kick in the bus did arrive though, stopped for 5 minutes to fill up with passengers and off we went. It was at this point i realised i had left my lonely planet book back in Buenos Aires, turns out the spare one floating around without an owner was mine after all...Ooops!

The Argentinian buses are good, you get food on the long ones and blankets and on this occasion too good, we arrived in Cordoba at 6.30am far too early for South America. After a couple of recommendations we went to Tango Hostel (Fi i think you stayed there?). We couldn´t check in until 2pm so dumped our bags and and found what everyone needs after an overnight bus journey - a McDonalds for breakfast, nothing like trying the local cuisine hey! After a slow McBagel we strolled through Park Sariento which is the big (and i mean big) park in the city. We were a little dissapointed as we were told Cordoba was a party town full of students (there is 300,000 of them) but being the Christmas holidays the city didn´t have the buzz we were assured it normally does. The afternoon was spent uploading photos, it took me 5 hours so you had better have had a look at a few of them! When i got back to the hostel we had a couple of beers and chatted to some of the other boys in the hostel. We had signed up for the asado (BBQ) earlier in the day, and it did not diassapoint there was 10 of us eating, so of course they got 10kg of meat!! 1kg per person was what they base the meal on! The food takes hours to cook and they have 2 fires going, one for the coals, and then another for when the coals are the perfect temperature only on this BBQ is where the meat goes. There was a proper science theory behind it all, whatever the secret it worked the food was fantastic and i ate until i could hold no more. In fact so did Harriet, although a little bit too literally. Daughter of butcher and she ate so much meat she had to frequent the toilet rather quickly after dinner!!!

Inevitably, after a couple of beers we decided to join them for a night out, but seeing as Cordoba was quiet we had to get a 1hr 15m bus ride to Carlos Paz, the so called Las Vegas of South America. The combination of not being allowed to drink on the bus, not sleeping well the night before and the 2 beers in my system meant that i soon nodded off, not the best preparation for a night out, but power nap compelted i felt better the other end. We eventually found a club called Zebra and partied hard, so hard that Harriet fell asleep in the corner of the club, and being the kind gentleman that I am i thought it would be best to leave her sleeping peacefully whilst i kept an eye on her from afar, its safe in South America after all hey! I think in the hindsight the cocktails perhaps made that decision rather than me. At 4.30am and after Harriets nap we got back on a bus to Cordoba for another 1hr 15m and fell asleep instantly. We were woken up in Cordoba by the bus driver and then jumped stright into a taxi at 6am to get back to the hostel. At this point we realised we didnt know where we were staying, only the name of the hostel, which apparantly none of the taxi drivers know. 2 taxis, a lot of walking and an hour and a half later we finally turned up at the door and went straight to bed.

The next day woke up at 5pm! We cooked some pasta for dinner and then got ready to leave for the Rodeo which we were told was on in Jesus Maria. We left at 7.30pm although it still felt like morning to us and had an hour and a half bus ride to the city, again i didnt manage to stay awake again. It was well worth the journey though there were Gauchos (cowboys) everywhere. I mean proper full on cowboys with guns and knives and hats and belts and jackets and cowboy stuff and there wasn´t another foreigner in sight!

The BBQ´s smelt amazing and went on for metres upon metres it was a cut from any wild west scene. We meandered through the cowboy shops and BBQ´s and arrived at the stadium where the rodeo was held, entrance was 4.50pd and inside we saw rodeo compeitions, horseraces and people being dragged behind a horse on a cow hide trying to hold on for their life, it was great fun. It was also home to one of the more surreal experiences in my life...

Taking a pee in a room full of cowboys, they even urinate like cowboys, one hand on the wall and then lean all the way in. I have thought i stood out as a tourist a few times in south america, but never as much as when surrounded by cowboys and taking a pee! The rodeo went on until 2am and then after some meandering we caught the bus back to Cordoba at 3am. Fortunately, we had learnt our lesson and were armed with the address of the hostel this time!

We got up just before 10am and caught the last part of breakfast, the aim was to go into the mountain and see condors but we had got up too late for that. Instead, we did some sight seeing in Cordoba taking in the old town and after walked to the lido in the middle of the park. We were told that it was a bad idea on a Sunday in the heat because everyone left in Cordoba would be there. However, what they missed out was that apparantly no one in Argentina can swim, so half of the 60m pool which was deeper than head height was entirely empty. Even a swim here wouldnt be complete without some sort of strange event and today it was a medical in a cabin before the swim. It made sense eventually to give you a once over before swimming in a public pool but when we go to buy a ticket, and end up with the door shut behind you in a room full of doctors i did wonder what was happening. After passing the medical knits and veruca free we were allowed through ready for a dip. It was great to chill out and swim some lengths, i realised this was the first peoper exercise i had done since i had started travelling.

That evening we had a quiet one, the streets were empty and everything was shut, we found a supermarket and cooked enough noodles for dinner and lunch the next day when we were going Condor hunting.

We got up at 7am and at 8am caught the bus to the main station in town. Despite arriving at 8.20 there was no bus that we needed until 9.30am. This made us a little nervous. The problem was that the national park where the Condors were had no official bus stop. Getting there was meant to be easy you just get the right bus to some town and ask the bus driver to drop you off half way near the entrance to the park. However, getting back was a different story. You have to wait by the side of the road for the bus that heads to Cordoba once every hour and simply hope it stops and picks you up. If the bus is full, tough luck you wait another hour. We had met Adam, an Aussie at the hostel and he did he trek 4 days before us, his nickname was red panda though due to the sunburn he picked up whilst waiting for the bus. he waited for an hour and a half which apparantly is a very short amount of time and was lucky as he was the first person to queue outside the park. Therefore, leaving an hour later than planned could easily put us further back in the queue on the return leg and who knows how long we would have to wait. Still we were reassured that only 1 girl in the last 6 months had had to wait overnight in the freezing cold, on a mountain, inhabited by pumas, in he middle of nowhere!

When we got off the bus which literally is the middle of nowhere we had a 20 minute walk to the park entrance and here lady luck was certainly on our side. We saw maybe 12 people in the whole national park after 4 hours of trekking, but as we walked into the cabin at the entrance so did an Aussie couple with a 4 x 4 that had heard our conversation about the bus. They very kindly offered us a lift back to Cordoba if we were ready by 4. It was now midday the trek was a 4 hour wide trip, we had to get a move on. And get a move on we did, we walked over the peaks and reached the condor canyon in an hour and 20 minutes, some sort of park record i´m sure. When we got to the canyon we ate our noodles and enjoyed the 40 minute rest that we had earned before turning back. During the 40 minutes we saw about 7-8 condors. They are the second largest bird in the whole world after the albatross and were pretty cool fellas! The walk back was a bit more up hill and took us an hour and 40, it was also briefly interrupted by 2 wild guinea pigs running across the path in front of us. We arrived back at the park entrance with about 15 minutes to spare and true to their word our lift was still there waiting for us. No red panda nicknames for us today! We were at the hostel by 6pm to the amazement of everyone, treated ourself to a shower and another McDonalds and then caught a night bus backt to BA - well it had been a couple of days without a party and we weren´t going to get another 1 long bus ride to a club and back!

Overall, Cordoba was good and we got out of the city for once, but its a shame we weren´t there during term time as im sure its a completly different city!