last breathtake before going on the road again

Cordoba graffity

general san martin - the liberator

andreas goodbye party - the only argentinian who liked my palinka

actually all the alcohol got finished in the party (even the 1 liter vodka)  - but the PALINKA SURVIVED yeahhhhhh - long live the hungrian stomachs

 

in villa allende again

the sun rays passing through the mountains at sunset - i have never seen something like this before

 

mate - hasta siempre

 

villa allende - Leo and his friends

 

my days in Cordoba

My days here have been slow. I wanted them to be slow, but finally they dragged me in a melanchonic mood.

 Not even the joy of seeing Andrea could eliminate my nostalgia and this eery feelling that i would like to work and do rutin. Yes, my dear friends, one can be this weird! I was feeling it already befor the travel a little, not wanting to go, maybe it is not the right moment. It goes without saying that all my friends were considering i was going out of mind that i am not jumping of joy from the adventure of my life. Travelling is one of the greatest thing in life if you are in the moment.

Traveling is goood when you are searching somethings, yourself, anything, come away from routines. I miss my routines.  I miss my students, the children, the old ones, i miss Budapest (how much i miss it!!), i miss my family, i miss my love, i miss italy. I miss retouching my photoes every evening... Countless routines i miss. Even more is the missing feeling of wanting to work, to start another travel, that of finding your place and role in society. I was even thinking of coming back earlier! But i will hold on to my dream, and trave more, coz one is always for some reason iin one time in one point on this planet (and at least it is a warm point :) ). In Spain i stayed 10 month without a tear of nostalgia and now i have been suffering after 2 weeks - life is unpredictable.

However, this is a travel blog, so i will continue telling my stories from this conutry, with which i am more and more in love. You have to be in love with this country because all the people you meet give you presents: a smile, a laugh, a good conversation, a cup, a book, many songs on the guitar. The couple of the estancia keeps telling me i have to come back for honeymoon. A guy, Leo, from couchsurifng invited me to his village, in Villa Allende (it is like szentendre for cordoba). He has just come back from a tour around europe, and wants to give back al the nice things he lived. We went on a bike, met his friends and sang.

 

When you meet friends of friends here, they treat you like they had known you for long, having a guest is a present here. I sometimes have felt this in Sicily, this incredibe caring for the relationships between people. Or as Andrea put it: "they dont work too much, they dont study, but they always have time for you!"

This of not working and studying is not completely true though. For example it is realy common to work and study, but with working i mean full time! And then you go to your classes in the evening till 11. No wonder many students finish the university in 7 years, and many do not even finish it... And the conditions. Look at the universsity buildings, it looks more like some cutural center to make party:

It is full with graffity:

 

This one is  memory for the military dictatoship between 1976-83... 30 000 people disappeared after being tortured in the process which is also called the dirty war. Andrea´ s flatmate, Ciro showed us a movie about the tortures. It is a true story of an escape. It was very strong, although me as the daughter of an excommunist country should be more used to such topics. I find it really upsetting that in Europe we do not learn anything about the history of the other continents and if we do learn it, it is always in the eyes of the american-european media. Argentinians claim, Ciro said there is evidence, that the United States (being afraid of every ittle grain of communism) established most of the dictarors here in LA, and payed the systems of torturing. In my view, there should be more focus on these little details in history education. I do not like conspiracy theories, and Argentinians have made lot of the troube themselves (the economy is collapsing because during the military regime they sold ALL the during peron´s time protected strategic companies to foreign investors - so there is literally no profit staying in the country - the perfect receipt to destroy a country in ess then 10 years) - but it could be nice if the medias would reveal more details about this regimes.

Something more about history. The falkland island are called here islas malvinas. Ciro told me the governement attacked it just to find an enemy, and of course also for the strategic things

The triangle is Argentina, so you can imagien the rest :) Anyway, there is a lot of petrol and  other nice stuff on the northern part of the south pole, and the owner of the islands, owns that part of the pole. So easy. And Argentina supposedly lost in great part because of the Chilenian governement secretly collaborating with the UK  - ecco the reason of the hate between the two nations. But is it just impossibe for neighbours to like each other?

The lines are terribly long here in the shops, and the reason is easy: they work slowy :) And you need the ID or passport for everything. Yesterday i paid with the card, and they wanted my document. I told i didnt have it with me but i invented the number. There are also letters in it, but since the cashmashine doesnt have ones and usually argentine IDs have only numbers, the women just marked 00...

Interesting brands here, where we shop: DISCO

I didnt know what to think of this shop

If you ask fro a coffe you can get in in chico or grande :)

A poster saying Kirschners in town like some kind of rock band playing

The poor people from the villas coming for the garbage with horses

It is raining like hell:

Some more photoes:

 

Today is the farewell party of Andrea. In argentinian time, the party will start around 12-2, and as earliest finish at 7in the morniing.

on the road til cordoba

finally in one place! i arrived yesterday morning to Cordoba to my german friend, Andrea´s flat. I arrived earlier as planned because i was already way tooo tired of going around, always on the road and i missed my dear Andrea as well.

I have to tell you about being on the road. We left San Ignacio up in the north here we were One more thing about the guarani, the indigenous folks in this zona. They were (there are still some communities but the "conquest of te desert" carried out by a president earier and before in the destruction of the misiones most of them were killed) an icredible folk. They have one of the richest languages on the world! And after atin and greek they aported the most words to the sciences of nature - which is something amazing. Actually, here many fruits, trees, rivers and even some cities bare guarani names.

We wanted to arrive to esteros

 de ibera, a national park, further south, and as there were no direct bus lines, we hitchhiked. It was the best experince till now! We met wonderful people! We went many hours by a truck, whose driver was extremely nice! And the people are here interested in general and know about things. At first, when people asked me where i was from, and i told them hungary, i didnt beieve they had evena the faintest idea where it was, but i was wrong. And the best in hitchhiking is (compesating its danger, but when you are two person, a lot less) that the drivers tell you many things about their countries.

We passed in Posadas, where there is the limit with paraguay (actually a big river, this region is full with rivers) we stopped tu buy smugged cigarettes from paraguay. In paraguay there is no tax on anything, whereas in argentina for example on cars there is 100 percent - which is crazy. They told us it is easier to buy a house than a car. No wonder you see so many old cars, totally trash.

The pampas were still boring, flat flat flat. The driver told us there are roads where you go for hunderds of kilometres straight - u amoast go out of mind i imagine. It has been raining for days, which is unusual here, normaly it is a strong 1 hour rainfall and then sunshine. Now the country has been coverd by clouds for days. Everyone is happy for it however, since there was a long dry period and many animals died from the draught.The rivers were flooding everywhere, almoast covering the roads. Ah, the roads, highways dont exist  - or they do but more or less look like a larger bycicle road. So the distances get even longer...

Our next driver, for which we waited about one second, told us a ot of things about the region. It is really full with nations - i have told you about the immigration from Europe, but it is something incredibe. There is a folk song, a Chamame about Oma (in german means grandmother) who had blue eyes and was pretty and so on.
In fact, there is a spanish phiosopher,Julian Marias, who wrote this about the argentinians - representint the mixed identity, which they sometimes consider good sometimes not.

"Los argentinos son italianos que hablan español.
Pretenden sueldos norteamericanos y vivir como ingleses.
Dicen discursos franceses y votan como senegaleses.
Piensan como zurdos y viven como burgueses.  

Alaban el emprendimiento canadiense y tienen una organizacion boliviana.

Admiran el orden suizo y practican un desorden tunecino.
Son Un Misterio"

"Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish.
They want American wage and live like Englishmen.
They say French speeches and vote like Senegalese.
Think like lefties and live as bourgeois.
Praise the Canadian venture and have a Bolivian organization.
They admire the Swiss order and practice Tunisian disorder .
Are a mystery "

Now to the best part. I had to hitchhike a little alone between two villages (whcih was quite common). Vero went to this esteros de ibera but i decided to not go for the rain.We agreed she woud catch up on me in Cordoba, at andreas place. A man took me for the ride. He was od, around 50 and was saying i am crazy to hitchhike alone, that these girls from the europe like me are crazy. And he told me stories about german girls, who were cold and couldns speak spanish. In general, a the europeans seem cold for the people here, which is no surprise since here they have a different culture of approaching each other and establishing contact. Anyway, we werw eating sunflower seeds and talking and he turned out to be realy funny. He stopped every z100 meters to take a sunflower from the roadsie for his girlfriend!! Coz she loves sunflowers and pants them in the garden. So sweet!! I talked on the phone with his girlfriend, she wished me a good travel. He took me to the bus station to check about the bus. It left only in the afternoon. So he first wanted to pass me to one of the sons of his girlfriend, coz "he is my age" :) But finally he ended up inviting me to the girlfriends, novias house, which is a estancia!!! They were incredibly nice! I have read in lonely planet that argentinians are quick to invite you to their place and are extremely wellcoming but i didnt hope to experience it myself so fast :)

We took lunch, gnocchi (italian roots) and talked about everything. To arrive was a little difficult, the mud road was slippery like hell and actually we kicked a lamppost on our arrival and it fell.

Actually, one told us about a story of a german family who came to visit the village for they had some far relatives there. They liked it so much, that went back to germany and packed from bycicle to children everything on board and settled down in the village close to Rosario. To tell the truth, i can understand them. Of course, one has to see the other side as well, argentinians leaving the country for better standard of living.

The middle class is still better off here than in other countries, but the corruption is destroying the country. Argentina was one of the worlds emerging powers before and now nowhere compared to that. One can easy travel here withoutnoticing the poverty, the poor live in the suburbias in so called villas (yes,the same word ironicly like the rich houses) - slums, ghettos. Here in cordoba you can ony see them when they come with their horses and go around looking for useful things in the garbage.

I will stay in cordoba for one week. It is warm, humid but nice :) The city is the countries second biggest. It has one of the oldest universities here and won the title LA`s cultural capital. I have been in some museums so far.

Their most famous painter: Genaro perez, portrait of a jewish

There were tango classes on the patio :)

I love the dogs:

And a cool graffity: "there is no revolution without sex"

from the swimming pool of san ignacio

There are ways how you imagine a travel - till now i have had my dream comleted two times: one time in rosario with esteban's asado, and today arrivong to san ignacio and finding this cheap cheap camping with hammocks reaggea music and a big swimming pool!!! a swimming pool always sounds cool but in 40 degrees it just gets necesarry... In Puerto de Iguazu we had a pool in the camping as well, but since it has become a lake in the last years, it didnt work...

From Rosario we took s 18 hours long bus drive to Iguazu falls... For being so expensive (all the prizes are the double since the 2007's lonely planety publication - they are rising fast...) it was not so cool the ride. Argentinians are big bus riders, and yes, we almoast had a bed instead of the seat and had some meals served - but it was dirty a lot - in facty some cocroaches. And the best is you cannot chose if you wanna  watch the movie or not - you just watch it coz it is bursting loud :) The y put 5 movies of Jacki  Chan!! Today on the 5 hours ride to San Ignacio at least it was the mummy 1-3.

Mate always, even on the bus

On the pampas there is nothing, cows and grass. And if you are lucky u can spot some gauchos (the cowboys of here).

And i could see the really poor side of this country  - when we stopped by in a town, a group of small children were waiting to get the garbage bag of the bus - with plenty of food inside it for them...

Iguazu is incredible. Look for my photoes. The only problem is you have to walk almoast in a line with the tourists... And they promise many animals (Vero was hoping to cross a puma) but obviously they avoid the noise.

Our camping was rather unique:

But now :DD

San Ignacio is quiet and beautiful.

Here are the jesuit missions. The jesuit priests established little communities isolated from everything where they were catolisizing the guarani indigenous people. However in a very friendly way, they could speak their langauge and customs... It was the succes of humanity, as the say it... It worked so well that the guarani folks (still keeping their identity even today) have mixed catholis music to their tribal sounds! Sadly enough, the jesuit missions (theree were around 30 in the region) got destroyed in the 18th century when the spanish king had had enough og pumping money into "nothing". Nowadays, you can visit the ruins...

Okay, still too warm, i jump in the pool :)