Cordoba and My First Carniceria

After four great days spent getting lost in Buenos Aires, we decided to move on to Cordoba, the second largest city in Argentina.

Cordoba is the old capital of Argentina, now known mostly as the educational center of the country. It is home to approximately one million people, although there is a near constant influx of domestic and international students.

Upon arrival, I think I was expecting to see some kind of old palatial university campuses, filled with students bustling off to class and frumpy Argentine professors. Against my better instincts, I had been building up Cordoba in my mind as some kind of regression to my own days at college.

In reality, Cordoba feels like a small, rather provincial town. Perhaps it is just the contrast with Buenos Aires, but it seems vastly more contained, with a slower overall pace to life. Of course, it doesn't help that we arrived on a Sunday, in a deeply catholic country, so all (and I mean ALL) the shops were closed. The streets were more or less deserted, with wistful bits of trash blowing the in the high Pampas breeze. In desperation, we scavenged some sandwiches from a roadside stall, along with a couple of beers (Quilmes, the most popular down here) and locked ourselves in our hotel room for the rest of the day. We watched High Fidelity, dubbed in Spanish, while downing our makeshift meal. I learned the word for "check" (cuenta) and then we passed out again. There goes our first Sunday.

Today, we woke up to a whole different city. The street outside our hotel was positively packed with people, and with all the shutters finally up on the shops, I could see that here too, the number of boot shops was disproportionately large. Clearly, I need a job so that I can start shopping.

After an eventful trek around the main plaza loaded down with our heavy backpacks, we managed to find a reasonable, comfortable hostel. This time, we opted for a doble room so that we could actually sleep in the same bed. After dropping our stuff, we popped into a cafe for some cafe con leche and ham sandwiches (with huevos! so good...). Then, we found our way to the river, where we plopped down in a grassy park near the water and watched our neighbor strip down to his underwear to do calisthenics while standing on his head. I tried to take pictures, but alas, he was moving too fast.

After a restful sojourn by the river, we headed to the downtown marketplace to buy some food for dinner. As usual, we found plenty of fresh, delicious vegetables. But tonight was different: I wanted to try cooking some carne.

In Argentina, as in many places around the world, one cannot simply waltz into a supermarket and pick up some pre-packaged beef from the refrigerated section. No, if one wishes to eat meat here, you are required to patronize your local carniceria, or meat shop. For those of you who don't know, I recently came off a three-year vegetarian kick, so this whole animal carcass thing is new to me, or newly new (born again carnivore?). Thus, the idea of actually entering a carniceria was a bit daunting to me.

Driven by my strange new bloodlust for sumptuous Argentinian meat, we tentatively entered a corner shop. Inside, I was overwhelmed by the smell of raw meat, the sound of the butcher's table saw, and the 5kg bag of raw intestine being purchased by an 85lb grandmother. The horror! We perused the selection from the doorway while I wrapped my scarf around my nose. Everyone was buying huge quantities of meat and I knew then how out of our league we were. When we finally approached the counter, we asked for 2 thin slices of carne. The butcher looked at us in disbelief. "Are you sure?" he asked. Yes. He gave us three and shook his head disapprovingly. Apparently, Costco is in the wrong market; Argentinians like their meat in bulk!

Outside, I gagged a bit and made a beeline for the nearest baby clothes shop. Surrounded by fluffy fabrics i felt my equilibrium return somewhat and we were able to head back out on the street to get lost yet again on our way back to the hostel, where we cooked up some mighty delicious carne!