Córdoba and Santa Fé

Having arrived in Córdoba with the weather closing in, we just wanted a quiet evening on the sofa.

There were no restaurants near the apartments, but there was a food delivery service and the staff at the apartments had a menu and were happy to place an order for us. We ordered pizzas, which the staff kindly brought to our room when they were delivered. There was also a supermarket just round the corner, good for getting wine, etc!

The next morning the bad weather had passed, although it had rained heavily overnight, and the day looked set to be hot and sunny.

We were about 12 blocks from the centre of Córdoba and we made our way to the centre. I have to say that my initial impressions of Córdoba were not good; the walk to the centre was through quite a run-down area, although there was a lot of building work going on, and my impressions did not change as we got closer.

Córdoba is not a pretty city, it's busy and bustling, but for me was lacking any personality. We went to find somewhere to eat, which would now be brunch, rather than breakfast. We found a place in a shopping arcade just off one of the main streets; I had a salad and Dave ordered a sandwich but ended up with something more like a lasagne filled with the slices of ham and processed cheese we normally get offered at breakfast.

We then continued onto the main square and went into the cathedral, which was undergoing renovation.

It was very hot, so we found a bar in a smaller, prettier area. While there, we rang my Mum and then Dave's parents using Skype. Dave's parents were out, but we spoke to them later. It was really good to speak to Mum and later Dave's Mum and Dad and I enjoyed sitting at the cafe (you will have noted that I like doing this!)

We had considered another night in Córdoba, but I was not keen and we both felt that there was no more to be seen, so we decided to go onto our next destination of Santa Fé.

Up fairly early the next morning to load up car - we found out as we were loading the car that we got breakfast included in our booking of the apartment, but had not realised this - I think a case of so many hotels booked and not noticing or remembering all the details at the time of booking!

We set off, but the sat nav took us on a bit of a journey round the houses before we got out of Córdoba.

Thereafter, this journey turned out to be mainly on long straight roads and we also encountered at least half a dozen police control areas, at one of which an officer told us that one of the front lights on the car was not working (you have to have your lights on dipped here).

We stopped for petrol a bit further on and Dave took the opportunity to replace the bulb; it was also going to be another hot day, easily reaching 36 degrees plus.

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant next to a petrol station, just outside San Francisco - pasta for me and chicken for Dave. Temperature on returning to the car was 41.5 degrees; that is hot!!!

The hotel we had booked in Santa Fé was about 3 miles from the centre and just off the motorway. We spotted the hotel , which was on the other side of the dual carriage way, so initially we were not sure how we were going to get there, as there was no obvious exit from our side of the road. However, with the sat nav and Dave's sense of direction we took a loop round the outskirts of the town and got on the right side of the road.

Hotel was in a secure compound and a fairly new complex. Our room was located away from the main hotel in a separate block and was very nice.

As we were a little way out of town, we ate in the hotel.

Next morning we headed into Santa Fé, it was extremely hot, quite sapping heat. The hotel directed us Initially to a new shopping complex in the port area, which was air conditioned - bliss! Come lunchtime, we decided to eat in the "food court" which took up half the building. We found eight separate fast food outlets, but all were serving almost identical menus; the typical dishes we'd seen in nearly every restaurant in South America. By contrast, in the UK we'd expect one each of Chinese, Indian, Italian, U.S. (burgers), English (fish & chips) and possibly Mexican. So no points here for originality. We eventually spotted a couple of wok meals at one place and went for those to get a bit of variety.

We then decided to walk into the main town, where most of the shops were closed. Nothing to make Santa Fé stand out, but it was not an unpleasant town. The heat was becoming unbearable, so we decided to head back to the hotel to chill out by the pool. The road back to the hotel was closed, we think due to an accident, we could see smoke. Again we had to do a loop around town to find a route back!

Lounged round the pool for a few hours and ate again in the hotel.