around-about argentina, bolivia, peru brasil: 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.