Chillin’ in La Cumbre

When we were trying to decide where to go for our little vacation, Carolynn and I first talked about going somewhere warm—lying on a beach in Brazil was sounding pretty good after so many cold months in Buenos Aires. But the cost of plane tickets, or the hassle of getting a visa, or some mysterious force, led us to look domestically, and we ended up on a bus headed to Córdoba, the next province over from Buenos Aires. We didn’t know too much about it, but despite having several Argentines tell us the provincial capital was feo (ugly), we had good feelings about it—a university town, near mountains, with old colonial buildings, sounded pretty good to us. It was even a place that for some reason we both thought we might like to live. We ended up in a really great hostel, but the best part about Córdoba ended up being the weather—we arrived just in time for a freak two-day heat wave and enjoyed feeling the sun on our bare arms for the first time in months. But during our afternoon rambles a dark smog-looking cloud above town turned into a whirling dust storm—it felt like the end of the world, like you see in the movies, and we sought refuge in an office building—and later we both had to admit that yes, Córdoba was a bit feo (I realized that just because there are colonial buildings doesn’t mean they aren’t surrounded by other modern, unattractive buildings), and we decided to head to the small town of La Cumbre, two hours north, in the foothills of the Sierras de Córdoba, and a prime place for paragliding, which we really wanted to try. Luckily La Cumbre has been a nice place to hang out, since we are still waiting for the right weather and wind conditions to get to go paragliding. It’s pretty cold here, but we have hiked up to the big Cristo Redentor statue on the hill above town, enjoyed plenty of tasty food (always a priority), wandered around town, and we got sort of lost this afternoon on the dirt roads outside town—turns out the tourist office’s map isn’t so good for actual navigation—but luckily we flagged down someone to drive us back to town. I’m really enjoying some lazy days of doing nothing, and we’re not feeling particularly motivated to go anywhere else. It’s looking like we might just stay here until it’s time to get our bus back to BA on Sunday.