Well, the plans for today have had a major
change!
We were up by 6:00 am, made a cup of coffee,
packed, checked-out of the hotel, drove to the airport, returned the car and
were checked-in at the airport.
We
chatted with an American family from Annapolis, MD while everyone drank a cup
of coffee to wake up!
The family left
for their flight gate, when we realized someone was calling our name.
It was the gal who checked us in at the airport
counter.
She told us that our flight to
Cordoba was canceled!!
We have to fly to
Buenos Aires first and catch a flight from BsAs to Cordoba at 3:00 this
afternoon!!
3:00 pm!!
We will be missing a whole day of sightseeing!
When we arrived in BsAs we immediately asked
if there was an earlier flight – everything was full, so we had to
sit at the airport in BsAs waiting!
The flight from Mendoza to BsAs was
interesting.
We have been in such dry
climates that it was shocking to see lakes and ponds – actually it looked more
like Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.
Lakes of
all sizes and shapes, and what looked like canal ditches were everywhere,
glistening in the sun.
The landscape was
a beautiful green in comparison to what we have been in for the past week. We
could see lots of rectangular green fields.
We are looking at our guidebook on Cordoba,
deciding what we will do with our shortened period of time in the area.
We will do what we can do! In the time we
have!
It was almost dusk when we arrived at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Convention
Center in Cordoba. Our flight went well when we finally lifted off. Again we
flew over a large expanse of agricultural land.
Once in Cordoba we picked up our rental car and drove
directly to the hotel.
We have been
staying in nice places, but we are enjoying a little more luxury at the Holiday
Inn.
After a few minutes of settling in
we took a cab into the downtown area.
We
had several things we definitely want to see – a cathedral and the Plaza San
Martin and we need to do these things tonight as tomorrow we want to head out
of town.
Cordoba is a much larger city than Mendoza and for
one reason or another it is much greener – we think they get more rain.
Mendoza is just east of the mountains and
those valleys get very little rain.
All
of their vineyards, orchards, and other agriculture are irrigated.
Whereas the agricultural around Cordoba looks
like it gets enough rain.
I don’t know if I mentioned it before, that two
men, San Martin and O’Higgins, are liberation heroes here in South America.
Everywhere you go you see mention of them (sculptures, monuments, plaza names,
etc. San Martin more often than O’Higgins, but it is often the two of
them.
The central plaza (square) in Cordoba is named
Plaza San Martin and across the street is the large Iglesia Cathedral.
When we entered the Cathedral at 7:35, a
service was in progress.
There were a
fair amount of people there for a 7:30 Thursday night mass.
We walked around a little, but left, saying
we would come back later, as the interior of the cathedral was beautiful.
We walked around the plaza and other streets
stopping at 2 other Cathedral. The third one was also having an 8:00 mass.
It was a very Gothic style edifice.
By now it is 8:35 so we went back to the
Iglesia Cathedral.
We could hear singing
this time, very upbeat singing, so we re-entered.
To our surprise this was a very charismatic
mass, being led by a different priest.
It
really was unbelievable.
They had a
praise band that lead singing in which the congregation of 100-150 attendees
were very involved – clapping, swaying, raising hands, etc. Then when the
priest talked/prayed, in very uplifting tones, the praise band hummed in the
background - since we could not understand a word, we could only go by voice
and music intonation.
This is one time
we were extremely disappointed that we could not understand.
But just listening was uplifting. We left
before the mass was over, but we did linger for quite a while, enjoying the
music.
 |
| Plaza San Martin |
 |
| Statue of General San Martin |
 |
| Iglesia Cathedral |
 |
| Main Alter - Not Accessible |
 |
| Congregation for first service |
 |
| Ceiling with paintings |
 |
| Center Naïve of the Cathedral |
 |
| Over the Alter |
 |
| The Dome |
 |
| The Praise Band |
 |
| San Francisco Cathedral |
 |
| Corazon De Jesus Cathedral |
 |
| Nearby Museum and Theater |
By now it is time to find a restaurant.
At 9:15 we ordered the BBQ meat platter for
the two of us. We are starved, as we have not eaten much today while at the
airports. However we could not possibly eat all the meat, plus it was late!!
Whenever possible we are paying in U.S. dollars,
as long as they are giving us a better rate than the official one.
If there is change, they give peso back in
change, which is good, as some places will not take U.S. dollars, such as the
taxi drivers.
We are getting low in
pesos after tonight.
Another thing I have not mentioned.
When someone asks where you are from, you do
not say “America”, like we say when we are traveling in Europe, etc.
These people are also living in “America” –
“South America”, so you say “USA”.
 |
| Another Vintage Car - Citroen "Duck" |
No comments:
Post a Comment